#and then in the AI space just straight-up shot this ship's main AI to get her out of the way so his adventuring group

[spotlightstudios]

Magma from last night w/ @neonsix67 !!!

I drew a bunch of my bg3 Tav, Ormand. (He's a handful. I thank Neon for letting me be a menace with this man on her team.) Some dca content (Sun, Being!Eclipse, and Fool from gitm). And then some oc stuff with N-8 (Nate) my beloved son, the computer program.)

Neon drew her pumpkin-head spooky season oc, Eyefil (beloved batdr oc♡) and Moon! Along with the lil Iris and Light's in the edges w/ commentary hehe~)

[kunosoura]

So...how about that science fantasy? 😏

Alright, here goes

Science fantasy is a little hard to pin down. For me, if science fiction has, like, psionics but it's treated like any other technology, that's just science fiction to me (biotics in Mass Effect being one example). And if a fantasy story has a bit of a technological edge (like, steampunk aesthetics placing it during an industrial revolution) but it still largely explores fantastic themes, it's just fantasy that doesn't take place during the middle ages.

So to list some science fantasy I like:

Dune by Frank Herbert is more on the science fiction end of things, and a lot of the more mystical elements of it are deliberate in-universe fabrications... but there are still elements of the setting refusing to be explained scientifically (science-fiction scientifically), and even though the fantastic elements are fabricated, the effect they have on the world and narrative end up all too real.

Star Wars is probably the main example of Science Fantasy thrown around; it has all sorts of fun with its robots and space ships and AI, but the core of the story, at least for the main movies, is still a very mystical one regarding the Force. I'm not gonna tell you to go watch the movies, they're a mixed bag and they'll be fine without my cheerleading them, but I still really like the Knights of the Old Republic games. If you do explore the expanded universe, Legends especially, there's a lot of stories about people living average lives in this universe and reckoning with both the mass of technological civilization weighing over them and the mystical elements that dictate the conflicts in their lives, but the EU is another mixed bag (and it's honestly been too long since I've engaged with it).

Speaking of CRPGs, Arcanum is all about a fantasy world that's reckoning with an industrial revolution; as it turns out, a world with magic isn't all that compatible with a world run by the logic of technology, and the world itself is undergoing a sort of reckoning with its nature as a science fantasy world. It doesn't deliver on this as much as I'd like, but it's still a really good an interesting game.

Another one in the more fantasy-world end of the spectrum, The Iron Dragon's Daughter is one of my favorite books of all time. Taking place in an unseelie realm that irrevocably reflects all the worst aspects of our own, technology and magic become inseperable. Birth control medicine is an antifertility ritual, Dragons are steel death machines that resemble nuclear bomber planes as much as they do creatures, a fae child experiencing prophetic visions while on the verge of death from a beating rattles off Mcdonald's commercials; Magic Is Technology Is Magic and both dictate our lives in ways we can barely grasp. It's science fiction less in the sense that there are sweeping shots of space and more in the sense that it's extremely concerned with the relationship between humanity and technology. Maybe a border case but I genuinely look for every excuse to recommend it.

If you like weird old animation and can stomach Ralph Bakshi in particular, Wizards is an offbeat adult animated movie VERY concerned with the relationship between fascism and technology as they encroach into a fantasy world. One of my favorite endings to any movie, ever.

If you want something where the scifi elements feel more like Jules Verne, check out the His Dark Materials series. It's a little Young Adult in its prose, but as it goes on its themes become increasingly Gnostic.

Here's another videogame recommendation, if you like roguelikes (or want to try them out) - Caves of Qud is all about finding yourself on a world ripped straight out of an old scifi adventure, with dangerous fauna, ancient technology that you can tinker and fuck around with but never truly Get which indelibly shapes the landscape. Also, you can become a psychic so powerful that reality begins literally warping around you wherever you go, and assassins begin slipping in from other dimensions to kill you. Very atmospheric and evocative for a roguelike game.

oh um. does cave story count? there are androids and curses and witches.

There are more, but those are some of my favorites!

[rainofaugustsith]

Rain Plays SWTOR: Spirit of Vengeance Survival Walkthrough

As we head toward 7.0, I thought it would be a good idea to check in with a Spirit of Vengeance Survival Guide, 2.0. I have my own feelings about SoV - namely that it's boring, tedious and was tuned way too high for a main story solo flashpoint - but let's move on to the actual guide. 

This is a guide specifically for those of you who just want to get this flashpoint over with so you can move on. 

I personally would advise trying to knock this flashpoint out of your story progression BEFORE 7.0. We have no idea how hard content is going to be once you lose some of your abilities and utilities, so if you have any characters who are planned to continue with the main story, I'd take them through now while you have all of the tools in your toolbox and are familiar with them.

After literally months of complaints the devs finally toned down this flashpoint to a more manageable level, but there are still a lot of mobs that hit hard, and it's still really long. When I went through with canon Viri and Lana at level 50, with Viri fully geared toward 306, I moved right along through the flashpoint without difficulty or deaths. It still took almost exactly an hour. It's even longer when you're contending with Rass Ordo and a lot of cut scenes. 

You will want to gear as well as you can for this - you should not have to since this is a story/solo flashpoint in the main story, but it will help you here. Remember you DO NOT have to group to get good gear. There are numerous solo missions that will give you gear up to 306 - the Mek-Sha Tradehouse missions, Personal Conquest each week, solo flashpoints, including the Onderon weekly and daily missions. Other suggestions: 

1. Buy and use the Supplied Kyrprax Command Stim, available at any medical droid in the flashpoint, including the one when you first land on Ship #1. If you're doing this as part of the main story, you unfortunately still have Rass Ordo as your companion. Rass Ordo, despite being influence level 25, still has the AI of a cardboard box. You'd be better off bringing along a Jawagram as your companion. This stim will up your presence for an hour and make him slightly less incompetent. 

2. If you can, equip yourself with the Life Warden tactical. This tactical drops fairly frequently from personal conquest and other gold gear boxes. It essentially gives you an extra heal in a tight situation and can come in handy. 

3. Medpac on your abilities bar. You hopefully won't need this, but have it handy just in case. You may want to invest in the Supplied Kyprax Med Unit medpac, which will heal you AND your companion. 

Within the flashpoint, some general caveats. You're looking at quantity, not quality here. It's just a lot of NPCs piling in on you. 

1. KILL THE HEALERS FIRST. KILL THE HEALERS FIRST. KILL THE HEALERS FIRST. Just about every mob here has healers. They have different names on each ship: 

- Varad Churl

- Darmanda Medic

- Ashade Lorekeeper 

If you don't kill the medics first the fights will be even more interminable. Get rid of them. 

2. Remember there are kolto stations in a lot of the rooms, not just the boss areas. 

3. Be very careful because there are a lot of mob groups close together. Watch where you are blasting/Force-whatevering because you don't want to pull more than one group at once. 

4. Get your gear repaired as often as you can. If you've fought a tough mob and there's a medical droid nearby, go to it and patch up, even if it means you have to backtrack. 

5. Get really familiar with any AOE (area of effect) skills you have. Know where they are on your abilities bar and how to use them. Given the mobs in this flashpoint, anything you have that can clobber several NPCs at once is welcome.

Now, here we go.

SHIP #1: 

Banquet room: after you fight the first mob and take the elevator, you will find yourself in a large "banquet room" with a lot of mobs. Pick a straight line and go forward, taking care not to veer too far to the sides. If you wander, you'll invariably pull the mobs on the sides of the room. 

The rest of this ship is pretty straightforward; it's just a lot of mob NPCs converging on you at once, over and over again. 

Gorga Brak: Straightforward; stay out of the red circles. Be aware that Rass Ordo will helpfully stand in these circles and let Gorga set him on fire, so don't expect any help during the fight. 

SHIP #2: 

More of the same: lots of mobs, now with Dar'manda nameplates. The Dar'manda medics try to hide more than the healers on the other ships, sometimes even going behind crates or other barriers, so keep your eyes peeled for them. 

First thing of concern here: after a few rooms of mobs, you will arrive at the notorious jumping puzzle. Just stay on the right side of the room and walk along the beam. There are a few jumps up onto pieces of metal but they are not hard, ambitious jumps. Otherwise you just have two places where you have to make sure your character drops down onto the beam and not into the flames. Angle your camera overhead so you can see what you are doing. 

Now it's time to go through the notorious Room After The Kitchen. As the name would suggest, you will know this is coming when you go through the kitchen. All the NPCs in the kitchen are neutral; leave them alone and keep going. The next room is a ballroom and you will find a lot of mobs. 

You can get through this room by fighting only two mobs IF you watch where you are fighting and blasting. I like to try to get the first mob up onto the stairs so there's less of a chance that anyone else in the room will be disturbed. Kill the medics first. Then go straight foward - right through the fountain - and up the stairs to the second mob. I again like to try to fight them in their alcove up the stairs so I don't pull the other NPCs in the room. 

You will now go down some corridors with more mobs - the space is tight, which in a way is good because you can't aggro more than one mob unless you really try. If you are going for bonus missions there are some rooms here to visit off the main path. If you're just trying to get this damned flashpoint over, continue straight down the hall toward that green arrow. 

After taking the elevator you'll get to the tether room, and a yellow message will flash onscreen about it. There will be a very large mob here with a lot of Dar'manda Commander silver NPCs. If Rass Ordo decides to up and die on you, it may be here. Remember there's a kolto station to the immediate right of where you walked into the room. 

Click the blue box to release the tether. Do NOT get too close to the rancor in the cage, Goldie. Back when SoV was first released, she'd aggro on you even from in her cage, and you couldn't kill her or get out of combat. They seem to have fixed that bug, but you know how that goes. 

Bask Sunn: Kill. The. Medics. First. After that, Bask Sunn has a wicked knockback, but he can't knock you *out* of the ship anymore. Remember Bask Sunn leaves a crate with your loot (look on the bridge), it's not on his person. 

SHIP #3: 

Your first challenge here will be another room with a lot of intense mobs. Take care not to pull more than one mob at once. Rass may decide to try to die here. 

You will quickly reach the sniper room. It's a long room with two snipers by the far doorway, shooting at you. Don't try to engage them; just keep running forward. As you cross this room, you will drop through the floor. It's a long fall but you won't take any damage; it's what the game wants you to do. 

Rass will not fall with you, and you will have a room of tentacles to fight on your own. Hit Unity and Heroic Moment BEFORE you fall, when you are still in the sniper room with Rass. You can use your HM abilities against the tentacles. If you really  have trouble with them, try to get out of the garbage pit; you will find a kolto station at the top of the small ramp. 

Now we come to...oh look, another room with a lot of mobs. They're so creative here. Do your best not to pull more than one at once, kill the medics, you know the drill by now. 

Troya Ajak: No special tricks. Stay out of the red circles. Her songbird volley is nasty, but she's perhaps the easiest boss in this flashpoint. 

FOURTH SHIP (The Spirit of Vengeance, I think?) 

Thankfully this is almost a straight shot to the final boss encounter, and there's a medical droid just before it. You may wish to wait for your Heroic Moment to cool down if you have recently used it. 

The silver NPC in the small mob right outside Heta Kol's area sometimes does not die. If you find that they keep recharging to full health, walk past them, put Rass on passive, and wait by the medical droid.  They should eventually give up and go back to their original spots and you can go on. 

Heta Kol: This fight has mercifully been toned down. There are two stages: 

You'll fight Heta Kol straight on. She has a serious knockback, but there aren't any special tricks here. 

1. Stage One: fight Heta. 

2. Heta disappears and a mob appears at the bottom of the stairs. There are two medics, and the Commanders will have knockbacks to keep you from killing the healers. 

3. After all the mob NPCs are defeated, Heta will return. Keep trying to hit her. 

4. Heta disappears. This time there's a mob with two gold Varad NPCs and two weaker ones at the stairs, plus two silver Dar'manda snipers on the platform. If you have any AOE skills, make sure they are available here so you can take out as many as possible at once. You may wish to consider saving Heroic Moment for this point so you can use Orbital Strike if you have it. Rass Ordo loves to die at this point so be mindful of where your kolto stations are. You might need the kolto for him, even if you don't need it for you. 

5. Heta Kol returns with a much more serious knockback and red circles of doom that increase in size and are hard to avoid. You're going to get thrown around a lot. ETA with thanks to @vespertine-legacy: The circles can be interrupted, which may make this fight easier.

And...you're done. Thank the stars. 

[imposterellie]

Impaling - Day 4

Peter Parker wakes up with a horrid headache. On a normal day, he'd go to sleep for a long time in a very dark room. Parker luck dictates this absolutely will not happen.

Alternatively: what happens when you swing through the streets with an aura migraine

*TW: swearing, major injury, impaling, talk of blood, passing out, pain, panic*

@febuwhump

------------------------------------------------------

Peter had woken with a terrible headache that morning. Since the bite, he didn’t often get headaches anymore, but when he did they turned into full blown killer migraines. He’d been to school with them before though, and he knew he’d be able to carry on as normal, just in a bit of discomfort all day. He thanked his lucky stars that May was out working an early shift when he left the house which meant he could grab some water and a few of his enhanced painkillers before dashing out the door to school.

The day dragged by. He spent many of his classes nursing his head, completely ignoring the teachers and trying his best to take part in conversation with MJ and Ned. It was clear they knew something was up. They kept shooting him worried glances when he zoned out mid conversation or winced when someone shouted. They finally said something when he stopped in the corridor on route to math class and leant against the lockers, his face pale. He was breathing heavily with his eyes screwed tightly shut.

“Peter. Man, you look awful,” Ned commented, awkwardly patting his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe you should go home. I’ll get notes for you.”

“It’s fine Ned, honestly, just a headache.” Peter said, trying his best to stand up straight and look as normal as possible. He still looked like death warmed up despite his best efforts.

“Dude. Go home, you’re not doing anyone any favours being in this state.” MJ reiterated, genuine concern for him on her face. “And you’ll ruin the team’s reputation if you sit in for practice today.” She grinned at him, “we don’t have slackers on our team.”

Peter smiled at her, immensely grateful for his friends.

“I love you guys, so much.” He adjusted his bag on his shoulders and turned towards the exit. “I owe you one for this.”

As Peter began the journey home, he contemplated calling Happy for a lift but he couldn’t face talking to the guy and having to endure all the noise of the car. So he walked. All the way home.

It took him far longer than usual to walk the few blocks to his apartment, probably due to his eyes being so sensitive to the light, he had to stop every few blocks just to squeeze his eyes shut and prevent his headache causing some serious vertigo.

Once he arrived back at the apartment, after fumbling with his keys for a few minutes, he went straight to his room and flopped facedown onto his bed, backpack still on. Peter laid like that for what felt like hours until he finally started to drift off to sleep.

Then his phone beeped. Then it beeped again. And again. And again.

Peter groaned and fumbled in his pocket, squinting at the bright screen, his head throbbing even more. He sighed softly when he realised it was notifications from KAREN telling him about incidents downtown that needed assistance. A huge part of him begged himself not to respond to the notifications but that niggling little voice in his brain knew just how guilty he’d feel if anything happened to anyone. So that settled it. He’d be attending that call.

Peter dragged himself off the bed, chucking his backpack onto the floor and starting to strip his clothes off. He quickly shoved his spiderman suit on, took a deep breath, and climbed out his bedroom window. His vision swam as he swung through the city but he was determined to get to the incident. He arrived in the nick of time. A car pileup on the main road was the issue, smoke everywhere and the cars minutes from going up in flames. He put all thoughts of the headache aside and leapt into action, yanking car doors off their hinges and pulling men, women and children out of the cars. He was pulling the last woman out of a car, her head steadily bleeding, when it caught on fire. If he’d been any later she would have been trapped in there.

Peter left the woman safely in the hands of the firefighters and waved at the growing crowd before swinging off into the city. The smoke and movement caused vertigo to slam into him out of nowhere and he shut his eyes for just a moment to try and stop the wave of pain and dizziness.

“Shit!” Peter exclaimed as the web he’d forgotten he was shooting missed the building he’d forgotten he was aiming for and he careened towards the ground. He had no time to do anything but brace himself for impact as he crashed through the front window of a museum, crushing a suit of armour that was probably worth more than his whole apartment building in the process.

He laid there for a second, dazed, surrounded by broken glass and the sound of an obnoxiously loud alarm blaring through the building he’d just accidentally broken into. The wave of nausea that suddenly hit him made him want to curl into a ball and cradle his head. The impact must have caused a mild concussion on top of the glaring headache he’d been nursing all day. And yet, he found that he couldn’t move, no matter how much he wanted to. He tried to haul himself up but yelped when a sudden pain shot through his stomach.

Peter gingerly ripped his mask up over his mouth as he started to hyperventilate, trying to control the pain. His ears were ringing but his hearing slowly started to come back and he could hear the distorted voice of his AI saying his name.

“Peter? Peter! It appears you have taken extensive damage to your head, ribs and abdomen. My recommendation is to ring Mr Stark. Would you like me to do that for you?”

“No- no.” Peter gasped out “No St-rk. ‘m fine.”

“I’m afraid the baby monitor protocol insists that I ring him in a grave emergency, and my scanners show that this is the case. I’m sorry Peter.”

Peter groaned as the AI ceased talking and a phone line opened, ringing in his ear.

“Traitor.” He whispered as the line clicked.

“Peter? What’s going on kid?” Tony’s worried voice echoed into the suit. “Who’s a traitor?”

“Hi Mis-r Stark.” Peter slurred, gasping between sentences. “I din rob a m-seum, ‘romise.”

“I’m on route kid, hang in there okay?” Peter could faintly hear the sound of the suit clicking into place and the thrusters starting up. Tony sounded panicked; Peter couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it had something to do with the throbbing pain in his head. Peter closed his eyes for a second, trying to numb the pain a little, when the sound of the suit landing beside him woke him from his dazed state. Tony’s face filled his field of vision and peter looked up at him as Tony’s face drained of all colour. Tony spoke softly into the suit but Peter didn’t catch much of it; he just caught something about a spear? Which made absolutely no sense.

“Underoos…?” Tony said slowly, “what the hell happened?”

“Fell. ‘eadache an’ I missed building.” Peter grinned a little at the memory, the pain was sending him a bit loopy.

Tony looked grief stricken. “You gotta promise me you’re not gonna move.” He took a deep breath, “I’m trying to get some painkillers, the Quinjet isn’t far off.”

Tony surveyed the scene. An ancient medieval spear from the suit of armour that Peter had crushed was sticking out from Peter’s midsection. He’d been completely impaled on a stupid knight’s weapon. It was just Parker luck that he’d manage to damage the suit enough in the car wrecks that the spear had hit a weakness and was currently turning the kid into a human kebab.

“It doesn’ even ‘urt that bad, ‘onest.” Peter said, the expression on his face betraying that complete lie.

“Just- just don’t move kid. I’m gonna get you out of this.” Tony ran his hands through his hair, his nerves running haywire. Peter wasn’t losing any blood as the spear was blocking up the wound but tony knew that the second anyone pulled the kid off that spear, he’d start to bleed to death almost immediately.

Peter nodded, losing his ability to form words. Tony’s face was blurring out in front of him, dizziness and vertigo suddenly taking over. Tony noticed the glazed look that Peter was giving him and panicked further.

“Kid, you’ve got to stay awake. Keep those eyes open for me,” Peter obeyed, looking confused but a little more aware than he was a moment ago. “Just keep listening to me okay Underoos? I’m gonna get you out of here alive if it’s the last thing I do.”

Peter smiled softly at Tony, he wasn’t fully aware but knew that the voice that was talking belonged to someone who loved him, and would always take care of him. That thought, instead of keeping him awake and aware, sent him into the darkness. He felt safe. And that was all that mattered.

“Shit,” Tony said, his panic being sent into overdrive when Peter stopped responding. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and Tony caught Peter’s head in his hands before he fell completely to the floor.

An age seemed to pass of Tony barely holding himself together, holding the dying kid in his arms, when the quinjet landed in the wide street in front of him. The wheels had barely hit the ground when the door was opening and Bruce Banner launched himself out of the aircraft, followed quickly by Dr Cho and a team of medics holding a huge array of medical equipment.

Tony’s hands had gone numb. He barely registered Bruce gently pulling him away from Peter’s limp body. All he could feel was slick blood drying on his hands. There were people all over his kid, touching him, hurting him. He fought Bruce without even realising he was doing it.

“Tony! Tony stop, we’re helping him, we need space.” Bruce forced tony to look at him. “Go sit on the ship, get some water. Just calm down, we’ll be there soon.”

Tony nodded slowly, resigning to the man’s words.

“I promise we will take care of him.” That sentence did it for Tony and he got up, staggering towards the Quinjet before sliding down onto a chair in the main body of the aircraft, his whole being numb. This situation felt familiar. He’d done this many a time with his kid, always when Tony could have fixed it, could have prevented it. But he didn’t. And Peter got hurt every time. Tony put his head in his hands and began to sob.

The medical team worked on Peter for several long minutes out in the street before deeming him stable enough to be transferred to the aircraft. Once on board, they kicked into flight immediately and headed straight for the compound, never straying from Peter’s side. Monitors beeped and flashed, wires everywhere, pumping drugs into Peter.

There were several points on the journey that one of the monitors flatlined.

They got him back each time, but they were very quickly losing Peter and Tony had never felt anything like the guilt and loss he was feeling in that moment. None of the team dared breathe a sigh of relief when they reached the compound. Although the most difficult part was over, they could not guarantee that Peter would survive the surgery to remove the spear. He had hit a vital organ and his internal bleeding was practically fatal. It was due to Peter’s incredible healing ability that he was even alive at all.

Tony ran by the side of the gurney all the way into the building before he was forced into a seat in the private waiting room by a harried Dr Banner, who then disappeared into the operating room without a backward glance.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Pepper came dashing into the room after the first hour of Peter being in surgery, clutching her phone, and ran straight to Tony, hugging him as tightly as she could. He barely felt it. Barely noticed the time passing at a snail’s pace as he waited for those damn doors to open.

He didn’t know when he had nodded off but when he woke, he was laid on Pepper’s lap, her hand stroking his hair. She was talking quietly and tony glanced across the room to see who had joined them. Sat in the chairs opposite them was Happy, clutching the hand of a quietly crying May.

Tony didn’t speak, he had no idea what he could possibly say to make the situation better, so he opted to say nothing at all. He was working up the courage to stop pretending to be asleep when the doors to the OR eased open.

“Tony.” Bruce said quietly.

He was up like a shot, holding his breath in case the news was bad.

“The surgery went well. We lost him a couple of times on the table but he’s a strong kid. He’s gonna be okay.” Tony felt relief like he had never experienced before flood through him and he lost control of his legs, dropping to his knees in the middle of the floor. He heard May burst into fresh, happy tears, and Pepper sounded as though she was thanking something for answering her prayers.

“It’s going to be a very long road to recovery, but he will be okay.” Bruce smiled at the scene, feeling complete exhaustion take over him, but pleased he could save the kid that meant so much to the people in front of him. He’d never known Tony as he had been since Peter appeared in their lives, and he’ll thank the stars every day for that blessing.

Bruce said his goodbyes whilst Tony thanked him profusely, before heading off for a well-earned rest. Tony immediately found out if he was granted permission to see his kid. He was in the ICU, but stable, according to Dr Cho, and could have one visitor. Tony offered it to May but she refused, claiming it would be too hard for her, so Tony took the opportunity.

He approached the door to Peter’s room with a sudden sense of nervousness, he didn’t know what faced him in there and he barely dared imagine it. He steeled himself and pushed open the door. Peter was surrounded by wires, pipes and machines, all working to keep him alive whilst his healing ability fixed what it could in his comatose state.

Tony sat in the chair next to his bed, gingerly reaching to hold Peter’s hand, trying his best to avoid jostling the wires. Tony finally let himself truly cry, the events of the day catching up with him.

Once he had calmed, he spoke softly to Peter. The boy looked so fragile, and Tony knew he would never let the kid get hurt like this again because of a flaw in something he built.

“I promise I will always look after you Underoos, I know you’ll never stay away from danger but I will protect you with everything I have.” Tony smiled softly, listening to the constant beeping that filled the room for a moment.

Finally he whispered, “I love you, kid.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 17: 2x26 Assignment: Earth

Finally finished up S2 of TOS yesterday. That was... a rough episode tbh. I’m just gonna say it: back door pilots are bad! They’re bad. If I wanted to watch that other show, I’d watch it.

Wow, they’re just really jumping right in, huh? “Here we are, on a routine mission into the past, using a time travel method that we invented nbd.”

Investigating desperate problems in the year 2020...2016.... no wait 1968.

Ooh, Spock in the transport room today. Does he have a whole extra random station there? That’s so weird; I’ve never seen that before. It’s like hidden in the corner.

Cat!! Cat!!

What a good actor. I’m still bitter that wikipedia has a whole section about the casting for “Isis the cat” that talks entirely about the human who played Isis for 2 minutes and nothing about the talented feline actor. Where did they find her? How did they teach her to act?

She has a lot of thoughts about Kirk.

I wrote down “Scully, you’ve got to see this” in my notes and I’ve already forgotten what it refers to lol. Some moment that I thought would fit well with my favorite x-files meme.

Change history, you say? Spock is intrigued. ...Admittedly, Spock is often intrigued.

“What if it turns out you’re an invading alien from the future?” Honestly...let him invade. You’re not supposed to be here anyway.

I’m pretty insulted by this. The aliens went through all this trouble to help in 1968...where are our alien helpers NOW?

The cat straight up attacked his face.

Kirk is so fond of Spock being fond of the cat.

“It’s a lovely animal. I feel myself strangely drawn to it.”

Kirk is way too confused by Seven--an allegedly human person with super-human abilities that he says come from aliens--and yet, he’s met Charlie X so??? Is this not the same?

Kirk’s got the whole crew checking in on zoom.

(I actually do like this sequence of him getting video calls from different parts of the ship.)

“Weren’t orbiting H-bombs a huge problem in 1968?” Looks at the camera like he’s on The Office. Not the subtlest bit of writing in the “social commentary” genre. I do say this with love, though. I always enjoy when they comment on contemporary problems.

“He has a totally perfect body.” Lol don’t distract these two bisexuals.

[soft meowing]

“The prisoner has escaped.” The way this is shot, it looks like he’s talking about the cat.

Hmm, I do love the decor. Very 60s. This honestly immediately feels like a different show, and a much more dated show; even when the Enterprise time travels, it tends not to time travel to... office space.

Love the little sounds the computer makes.

So is Isis supposed to be one of the fancy aliens? It’s never explained but one must assume she is.

Aw, he’s petting her paw.

So I assumed the cats sounds are real, but just dubbed. They’re not lol. Which I guess isn’t surprising: this cat makes a lot of noises! They were provided by a human voice actress.

Damn.... I want a secret bookshelf that turns around to reveal a super computer with a big screen. “Computer... play Netflix.”

That’s what Seven does in his spare time.

The computer is an AI. “Beta 5 snobbery” lol.

Where are OUR alien overlords to stop US from destroying ourselves before WE can mature into a peaceful society?

This is really masterful exposition lol. Not forced or awkward at all.

ST sure does love the snooty female computer trope.

“Get us the proper costumes.” Yes, get Spock his Requisite Hat.

Omicron IV....that’s one of the names they use in Futurama lol. Such nerds.

Another excellent Spock Hat.

I love Seven’s various IDs. Great style. I wish my driver’s license looked like those.

“Who do you think you are?” He hasn’t decided yet. That’s why he was shifting through his IDs.

Seven is not smart lol. Like, he should have figured out way faster that this lady isn’t one of the Alien Overlords. He asks her the code question, she doesn’t understand it, and he... assumes she’s just really in character? Dude, that’s what the code questions are for!!! To help you identify people! Otherwise you could just straight up ask: are you an alien?

Instead he’s like “oh, you silly alien, you’re playing with me,” and then is forced to trap her, reveal his whole mission, and ultimately ensnare her in his plan.

I want that typewriter. Voice recognition typewriter.

"My incompetence has made you aware of very secret devices." Well at least he knows.

Trained cat!

The alien overlords were killed in a random car accident. That’s ironic.

Oh look, a real rocket!

Brown pants + short sleeved shirt + tie is such a Classic 60s look.

This security guard doesn’t think it’s weird that this random dude has a cat with him? Is this part of Isis’s alien power?

Except for the part where it’s a weapon, it’s pretty cool to see all this build up to, like... launching stuff into space. Exciting.

Isis likes to be on shoulders. Just like Little Guy.

New hat for Spock. His outer wear hat, and now his fancy hat. There is something to be said for this ep, and that is Kirk and Spock in suits.

Amazing how they literally launched rockets with computers that old. Like seeing the big bank of primitive computers is totally wild. We put people on the moon that way! Amazing.

“Meow.” Lol, Isis is stressed so she’s speaking like a cat. That’s a pretty funny joke actually.

Seven is so incompetent. If he’d just let the Enterprise help, Scotty could have fixed that rocket issue in like 3 seconds.

Lol everyone’s just pulling Gary through space. Now on the Enterprise. Now in the office.

Why does this computer have a hug black screen if it only displays images on the small white circle?

"Spock and  I in custody. Main characters, doing nothing, knowing nothing, totally useless and irrelevant. I have never felt more helpless." Literally what is even the point of them today? Does Spock even have lines outside of “I like the cat”?

Isis is jealous of Roberta. Is she.. in a relationship with Seven lol?

Uhura is listening to everyone in the world. She probably has a universal translator on, but I do feel like this scene implies she just...understands all the languages.

So now the warhead is armed and heading to somewhere vague... in other words, everyone has collectively made the situation worse.

....Or this was Seven’s plan all along? To scare people into ceasing to be so careful with nuclear weaponry? As someone who knows humans better than this guy, I think this is a dumbass plan.

“That’s why so many people in my generation are kind of crazy and rebels.” Same, sweetheart.

Really this is just a story about bad communication. If Seven had told Kirk his plan upfront, Kirk would have helped him. And if Kirk weren’t so insistent on involving himself in something just because he happens to be somewhere he probably shouldn’t be, we wouldn’t have this issue either. The hubris of everyone.

Overall, just a really forced narrative imo.

Or that’s how it was supposed to be lol. The Irony of time travel. By it’s nature, everything has already worked out.

Kirk and Spock are like “You’re welcome. Peace out.”

Honestly... Isis was the only good part. Such a talented cat actor!! Or trio of cat actors, I guess. Had to do all those stunts and stuff.. .amazing. I also liked the concept of Isis. How she turned into a human later just to troll Roberta. How she’s never really explained--one must assume, an alien? Plus I pretty much never get tired of human + animal teams where the animal makes animal noises and the human just understands and answers in English.

As a stand alone sci fi concept...it was okay. Kinda dated by now. The alien tech was nifty and Roberta could have grown on me. Maybe even Seven, though he left a lot to be desire. That said, the narrative relied a lot on people getting in each other’s way for no reason, which I find very frustrating.

But as a Star Trek episode....no. The main characters were just nuisances on the side lines!! I’m not even sure what Kirk’s mission here was--to try to figure out what Seven was doing? And stop him if necessary? But he never really decided if it was or not, until the point where not trusting him would basically cause a nuclear war? I don’t know, I found it all very frustrating. The melding of the original show and the spinoff was not smooth.

If I were watching this in 1968, I’d feel very cheated. THIS was the season finale? That’s it? I don’t even get a real Star Trek episode and now I have to wait months for anything new?

And what I get after all that waiting is Spock’s Brain?? I’d be tempted to quit. If I had a tumblr in 1969 I’d be writing multi-paragraph rants about how the best show on television has completely nose-dived lol.

But then there’s The Enterprise Incident, which is one of the best episodes... I don’t know, man. It’s a conundrum. I’ve only seen maybe half of season 3 but from what I remember it’s very uneven: some of the best eps (The Enterprise Incident, For the World Is Hollow, Day of the Dove) mixed in with some of the worst (Spock’s Brain, The Paradise Syndrome), plus some that are good concepts but shoddily executed (The Way to Eden). So we’ll see what I think about it when I see it all in one piece, in air date order.

[ardeawritten]

Halo 4

The game-player in me is thrilled with the very pretty levels, new weapons, flashy enemies and more creative, less linear methods of level progression/interaction. Lovely soundtrack as always, though the random peppy upbeat music overlaid on a race-to-save earth battle is still hilarious. This game was fun and enjoyable to play, a great few evenings' worth of distraction and some nice catharsis for a little current-events-related attitude. The last quarter felt like a meat-grinder slog, but then, it's endgame of an FPS. What else is it going to be?

The writer in me is rolling their eyes.

(there’s an whole essay under the cut) ((I really hope these cuts work on all platforms, if not I am sincerely sorry; it’s like a thousand words long))

Ok, so the first three games were a fairly standard blank-slate FPS protagonist. Play as an armored super-soldier fighting to save Humanity from the Monsters, with a Sexy AI Sidekick and some Battle Buddies. Not what I'd call high art in gaming, but I can understand its popularity and the enduring appeal of a simple, straight-forward "if it moves shoot it" style of play. No escort missions, no puzzles, really no boss battles requiring tricks and analysis. Just "if that didn't kill it, keep shooting or use a bigger gun."

Writing-wise, there's not a lot of characterization but overall Indications that MC is well-recognized, well-liked, has a sense of humor and a camaraderie with his co-workers, is pals with his Sexy AI and is a generally level-headed person-shaped brick. It's an early 2000's Military FPS, it's not about the characters, it's about role-playing as an indestructible military hero who always saves the girl. It's the game equivalent of John Carter of Mars-genre action hero stories (books, not movie.) This does not absolve it of the crime of woman-as-sexy-or-dead, but it is par for the course.

So on to game #4. 

This game was released in late 2012, in a post-Mass Effect gaming market. #4 has a ME2/3 feel to it, which makes sense. They're both very popular flashy scifi action games with similar graphics/design feel (and with Sexy AIs but that's another conversation about the literally unreal 'idealization' of womanhood in a male-dominated creator/created space!)

It opens with the storyline revelation that MC is a brainwashed and conditioned child-soldier, alleges he's got some issues with performing basic human functions and clarifies that Cortana's existence is the "band-aid" applied to that problem. On the MC side, Cortana's expiration date has passed and she's fragging out, giving MC a personal reason to want to get home. This combines to give the player a sense of urgency- if Cortana dies, it's not just "sad," it's "MC will lose his band-aid and all his humanity will bleed out." This is also I think the first time the POV is, narratively-speaking, third-person (we know things MC doesn't or couldn't know) instead of solely first-person (I'm not counting Arbiter’s story as breaking first-person, as it's still limited to player character POV.)

As a Writer, here's my issues: 

- MC is given a traumatic backstory as a brainwashed child-soldier to what? Justify a damaged emotional state, as if emotional wounding and isolation isn't a very common, very human point to reach after having experienced and participated in war at any age? Justify being unable to function without Cortana’s hand-holding? And then the game never goes back and addresses that opening cut-scene. 

- Cortana's existence had a built-in, known expiration, but she was still (retconned?) created to provide MC his primary band-aid. Either this was extremely short-sighted of the Spartan R&D team, or MC likewise was expected to expire on the same timeline. There's no talk of planning ahead for this problem that would render an extremely expensive asset fundamentally useless. (ok there’s Cortana’s “they’ll pair you with someone else but it won’t be me” line, but that isn’t exactly smoothing the transition any.)

- We the audience/player now know Cortana's death will have personal, negative repercussions on the MC's health outside of grief and trauma over loss of a friend and partner. She exists solely for his benefit, and must continue existing for his benefit, and the plot's urgency driven forward by his need to continue benefiting. It's not about saving Cortana, it's about saving MC. This would be fine if her character existence was framed as "computer service program," but it isn't. Prior to this game, narrative and gameplay repeatedly tells the audience she's a character and not just MC's security blanket.

- The above, coupled with her "stock naked lady sexy" design, has Implications of how the writing team figured they could fit a female character into their narrative. So far we have A) woman who fails to complete a heroic sacrifice and is shot in the back and dies pointlessly, B) woman whose visual and intellectual existence is tailored solely to benefit the MC and has no autonomy outside of that existence and C) woman as 'fallen mother/evil crone' who perpetrated the brainwashing on the MC. (Female Spartan in the mammoth got a whole three lines; female scientist with a bag of nukes? She… died pointlessly.)

(I swear I did not intend this to be an analysis of female roles in the Halo main game franchise but hey, my first memorable introduction to the FPS genre was Mysteries of the Sith where, playing as female jedi Mara Jade, you save the guy by making him acknowledge the value of a non-romantic peer relationship! That game was made in 1997.)

For Cortana, in 1 I got the impression she was a shipboard AI like EDI in Mass Effect, not an AI specific to MC. Her characterization feels like it's been shifted each game from a warship AI capable of coordinating fleet-wide maneuvers and going toe-to-toe with Guilty Spark to a cowering captive of Gravemind needing physical rescue to a Pocket Pal for MC to cover for his emotional shortcomings and inability to interact with technology more complex than "a button."

Having an AI programmed to be essentially a therapy dog or social caretaker, and exploring the complexities of that role related to the invisible and unquantifiable damage violence visits on the human body and brain would be a very interesting story. An AI designed for coordinating war on a massive scale who despite "winning" each battle finds its platform systematically reduced until the only "ship and crew" left are just one person would also be an interesting story! Why are we left with "my girlfriend's dying and I'm going to starve because she's the only one who knows how to cook."

tl;dr: the opening cutscene was detrimental to the plot, characterization and world-building. The game would have been fine as a story about a soldier coming to terms with his best friend’s inevitable death while trying to save the planet, and would have preserved Cortana’s game 1 identity as an autonomous AI who lost her ship and partnered up with MC of her own free will. The ending of “we saved each other, if just for a little while, and will grieve but will continue on” would have been stronger IMO than “I’m going to save you-I’m going to save you-NOPE.”

[popwasabi]

“Picard” S1 Review: Doesn’t boldly go but is nonetheless engaging

Produced by CBS All Access

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Isa Briones, Allison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, Harry Treadaway

Many fans had high hopes for “Picard” going into CBS All Access’s continuing voyage into the Star Trek franchise.

Fans wanted to see the lore finally expanded into the future after its previous three ventures (Enterprise, Abrams Trek, and Discovery) took place in the past, bring modern themes and ideas to Star Trek’s futurist’s world view in a way that felt fresh and relevant, but most importantly continue the story of the franchise’s greatest captain; Jean-Luc Picard, of course.

(He’s the best captain. This is not up for debate. Don’t @ me!)

In some ways the new series succeeds at this. We get glimpses of the previously untouched world of Star Trek post “Nemesis,” new themes that are resonant with real world events and exploratory, even critical, of the Federation’s worldview, and of course plenty of Picard himself as he navigates the strange new galaxy he inhabits.

But Picard ultimately misses the mark due to rushed storytelling, half-baked side plots, and just plain poor execution overall. It’s sad because “Picard” and this very talented cast and production team have their moments throughout this first season’s ten episode run but somehow even with 10 episodes of content to work with fans still end up with a somewhat jumbled mess.

(Me by like the eighth episode.)

This isn’t to say “Picard” isn’t worth your time if you’re an avid Star Trek fan or just someone who likes Patrick Stewart in this role in general but the first season will leave you still hungry for more and not in a good way.

“Picard” continues the story of the titular captain, now retired admiral, many years after the events of “Nemesis” as a retired Jean Luc reflects on his life in Starfleet and of his late friend Data who gave his life for his. A synth ban has been enacted in Starfleet after a major riot on Mars some years prior and Picard is understandably sour on the idea, given his relationship with Data, while also fighting Starfleet on not helping the exodus of the Romulans after the supernova that wiped out their homeworld in “Star Trek (2009).” When a young woman comes seeking Picard’s aid after an attack by mysterious assailants, revealing that she is an android and the possible daughter of Data, and gets killed, it is up to the retired Admiral to find her twin sister before she suffers the same fate.

Before we get started let’s throw out some of the bad faith arguments on why this series wasn’t all that good.

“Picard” doesn’t suck because it has “politics” in it. At this point, if you are complaining about the existence of social viewpoints and political/philosophical discussions in your Star Trek, or let alone any series for that matter, I don’t know what the hell you’ve been watching the past few decades. Star Trek has always been more than just a show about cool-looking spaceships and laser beams, you neckbeards.

(Hell, even the other “Star” got more going on in it than that.)

It’s also not bad because of female representation or “girl power.” Again, Star Trek has always had this and frankly having a few more instances of the women of Trek taking center stage doesn’t even come close to rebalancing the scales on the overall massive representation of cis white men across the genre and even the series anyways.

Also get the fuck over the use of curse words in this series. While certainly some instances in this show felt awkward, the use of the word “fuck” does not dilute Star Trek’s overall story.

(It would have made earlier season’s funnier for sure.)

Now that that’s out of way let’s get into the real reasons that, for me at least, the series fell short of an otherwise promising goal of delivering great new Star Trek.

The main problem stems from the series overall jumping off point in its first episode. Picard is understandably still upset about the death of Data and having him deal with survivor’s guilt is a great way to bring this character into the future and reexplore the humanist viewpoints Data touched on in the older series. But also having Picard deal with his fallout from Starfleet, both from the synth ban AND the Romulan exodus, creates chasmic diverging plotlines that never quite come together. The story really needed it to be one or the other. Either Picard wanting to advocate for the continued existence of synthetic life or the rescue of the Romulans post super nova. The latter is touched on a bit through the addition of the character Elnor but doesn’t quite work given that majority of the Romulans in this series are portrayed as villains.

There is definitely a post Brexit, anti-immigrant hysteria message being told there but not enough depth and nuance is given to make it look like Starfleet was particularly wrong here to abandon them given that they do end up being spies committing espionage in the Federation and the clear villains of the first season. The showrunners could have brought these two stories together by perhaps making Soji a Romulan bent on bringing down synthetic life because maybe her twin sister died in the riots on Mars, making Picard have to choose between his commitment to both minority groups abandoned by the Federation but of course, that’s not what the series goes with.

Also suddenly shoehorning in a convoluted anti-synth worldview into the already ultra-secretive Romulan empire was muddled to say the least.

(A decent summation of the Romulans, pretty much ever. Also why is the only Asian actress in this scene in Osaka depicted as an alien, Mr Kurtzman?...)

Some of these ideas could’ve been saved through better editing and pacing though but not enough is done in this first season to mitigate these issues. Too much of plot is told through plain exposition; people sitting down and talking for five-ten minutes about prophecies and backstory instead of having the story simply show us instead. It makes the pacing often slow even by Trek standards and grinds the action to a halt even when there are lasers being shot at one another in the next scene.

Many of these plots get barely any attention too. The Borg cube, why it’s abandoned, and why Hugh is working for the Romulans through the Federation is given surface level development at best. Seven of Nine returns and at one point is momentarily hooked up to the Collective and she doesn’t really say much about it after it happens. The new character’s Rios and Raffi both have side stories given to their development that get touched on once and never brought up again. Dr. Jurati straight up murders her lover and is set to turn herself into the Federation and it’s just kind of forgotten about in the finale. And Elnor, well, he gets to do his best Legolas impression slicing and dicing fellow Romulans with his sword I guess.

(He is still best boi though :3...)

The main co-star however, Soji the perfect android, has a particularly rushed development going from a scientist unknowing of her nature, to supposed prophet of doom, to predictably the savior all in one season. Her arc needed more time to develop with perhaps her Romulan love affair with Narek being the first season’s main driving force and her realization as an android being the climax. 

Instead we get basically four seasons of Battlestar Galactica’s Sharon arc crammed into one season and it unfortunately makes the story feel half-baked.

(Ok, Boomer.)

Don’t get the wrong idea, all these new characters have great individual moments as well throughout the season but sooooo much side plot is shoved in already into a muddled overarching narrative that it feels like several seasons worth of storytelling stuffed and edited down into a ten episode arc. Why the series felt it needed to conclude this robust story about synth hating Romulans in “Picard’s” first season feels like an unforced error in this reviewer’s opinion even if Sir P Stew only has maybe a couple seasons of extensive acting left in him anyways.

But the season isn’t completely worthless, as much as this review has been spent dunking on its less than stellar parts. The cast is exceptional, even working with the spare parts they’ve been given. Episode 5’s “Stardust City Rag,” in particular, stands out as a good mix of old and new Trek, with a decent dosage of cheese featuring Patrick Stewart trying on a French accent in a space bar. Santiago Cabrera is delightful as the ship captain Rios while also playing various forms of himself in AI form in equally enjoyable roles. Evan Evagora is fun as the deadly yet somewhat aloof Elnor, even if his character doesn’t do all that much except cut up a few Romulans. Seeing Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprise their roles as Riker and Troi respectively in episode 6 was heartwarming and felt the most like TNG out of all the episodes. And Jeri Ryan seems liberated in this series in this version of Seven of Nine, no doubt glad to be rid of that restrictive corset and Rick Berman’s meddling hands.

(Big “Fuck you, Rick Berman” energy going on in this scene.)

The production value is obviously high level as Trek has rarely looked this good on the small screen. There’s some great cinematography throughout the season whether it’s Picard’s chateau winery, the haunting nature of the Borg cube, or the synth homeworld in the season’s final beats. The spaceships look cool as always and the world of the future feels well futuristic.

The musical score is also top notch, with a great opening theme that feels very much in line with Trek at its futurist glimpse into a hopeful cosmos.

The season’s best moments though are between Picard and Data and will remind you why they were more than likely your favorite characters on TNG. Generally speaking, exploring the humanist themes of artificial intelligence in new Trek was a good choice and having Picard deal with survivor’s guilt kept the pulse of the muddled story still beating. Brent Spiner is still great as Data and will remind you all again how talented he has always been as an actor and though his age seeps through the makeup a bit he is nonetheless still a perfect android.

Though the finale as a whole is underwhelming, the characters do share a nice final moment that is both touching and reminiscent of everything a fan loves about Star Trek. It’s a great cap to an otherwise ok return to Star Trek for TNG’s top characters and its truly touching in the best way that this franchise has always been known to be.

(Deactivating my emotions chip because I just..can’t! I just can’t, ok! *Sobs*)

But great acting and high production value can only mask so many flaws with a convoluted plot and “Picard” unfortunately suffers from the bloated and uncooked nature of its many ideas. What the story really needed was three season arc not just ten episodes and it shows. I guess the plus side is with this particular plot wrapped up it leaves the door open for new ideas and a fresh start in the second season but it does feel like an overall miss for Picard’s homecoming back into the universe of Star Trek.

Overall, though there are worse ways a Star Trek fan can spend their quarantine than watching “Picard” and there’s certainly enough here for fans to latch onto and have hope for better things in the next season.

Hopefully things are less rushed or at least more focused in the second season and we can see a more proper return to form for both Picard and future Star Trek.

Here’s hoping the producers and writers make it so…

VERDICT:

3 out of 5

Let’s hope we get a return of Q in the next season.

[jincherie]

Wanted | 01

pairing: Jungkook x reader genre: space!au, alien!au, sci-fi, alien!Jungkook, smut (future) words: 8.7k+ rating: sfw warnings: swearing notes: as per usual i have jumped in over my head and this is going to be longer than the one shot it was meant to be soooo.... im splitting it in parts!!! i hope you like it!! more will be coming very soon :) (dont forget, this will have smut in the future!!!)

You were a deserter, a renegade, a wanted “criminal”. It was never in your plans to crash land on that planet, and it most certainly wasn’t in your plans to fall in love with it’s handsome ruler.  

masterlist | moodboard | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | complete

The cavern was serene, the towering walls lined with tiny, glimmering jewels that shone and hummed with an energy of their own. Large, dripping stalactites hung from the ceiling that loomed above, barring the entrance and preventing any creature larger than yourself from entering. They, too, were embedded with sharp crystals, and you’d had to be extremely careful when slipping between them so that you weren’t sliced on the way.

You’d travelled for weeks, months even, to find this place. You’d puzzled over stolen maps, run into dead end after dead end, and pieced together so many broken clues it felt at times as though your head was going to split into two. But finally, ultimately, you had been led here— and here was where you needed so desperately to be.

You were on thin ice. Ever since you’d started on this trail you’d been dubbed a wanted criminal, a traitor to the garrison and, by extension, the union. You hadn’t really done anything wrong, per say, but that certainly hadn’t stopped the ships and fighters that had been snapping at your heels for the past few months. You had one of the best crews you knew of in the galaxy, yet constantly running, evading, fleeing— having to always be one step ahead of those that were after you was exhausting. Words couldn’t encapsulate the sheer relief you felt now, at the end of the map and with the object you’d been seeking the entire time firmly in your grasp. It almost brought tears to your eyes, but you weren’t so foolish as to let your guard down just yet.

Your hand rose, fingers running along the leather cord of your necklace before you slipped it back beneath your shirt, hidden from the eyes of the world once more. Your eyes swept over the space of the cavern once more, years of training telling you to check the coast was clear, and make sure you weren’t in any immediate danger. Nodding to yourself, you took a step away from the large stalagmite in the middle of the room— the top had been cleaved straight in half, and in the middle there was a worn groove, now empty. Your boots landed in shallow water, the sound echoing across the space. You’d retrieved the object you’d come for, and now it was time for you to get the hell out of here.

There was a short buzz of static before a familiar deep tone sounded from your earpiece, “y/n, did you get it?”

You brushed down your leather jacket, adjusting your pistol in its holster. You turned towards the entrance and began to weave your way out, gaze trained longingly on the bejewelled walls. You’d already nabbed a handful of the jewels from their places when you’d first entered, and now they rested safely in a pouch against your hip. With any luck, they’d be worth enough to get you the supplies you needed for the next month or so. “Yeah, I got it. Taehyung, did you—”

You were cut off by a large tremor, the ground beneath your feet shaking and rumbling deeply. A select number of crystals were shaken from the walls, thinner stalactites dropping and shattering into dust and shards on the cave floor. The air itself seemed to vibrate as something massive flew close over the top of the cave. Alarm rang through you, freezing you in place as Taehyung’s voice sounded in your ear once more, urgency and fear threading through his tone.

“y/n, they’re here! I don’t know where they came from, but they’re here— you have to get out of there, now!”

You nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see it. “Affirmative, I’m heading out now. Prepare the ship for departure.”

Taehyung rushed an affirmative before the earpiece cut off and you were left to your own devices, the cave still rumbling dangerously with the remnants of your enemy’s sudden arrival on the planet. You took off as fast as you could in a cave full of sharp edges, your hardy boots slapping loudly in the shallow puddles that littered the floor. Your heart was racing, a customary reaction when the people that wanted to execute you for your crimes found your whereabouts, but you tried to stay calm for your crew’s sake. It was your fault they were in this mess, after all— you owed it to them to take care of them.

The entrance of the cave approached quickly, the rosy light from the planet’s twin suns casting a glow upon the luminescent crystals and refracting glimmers over the walls. You held your breath as you slipped quickly between stalactites and into the open air once more, but despite your best efforts in your rush you felt the sharp double point of a crystal slice into the flesh of your thigh above your knee. Instantly, the gash burned, and you knew it was a reaction caused in part by the nature of the crystals—they thrummed with energy, burning hot against skin wherever it touched, and were made up of a material that was so foreign to your body it simply didn’t know how to react to it.

Cursing, you ignored it for now— it wasn’t life threatening, but there were other factors at hand that most certainly were. The high-pitched thrumming of an engine you knew so well grew closer with each second you were in the open, and fear urged you into motion once more. The forests on this planet weren’t dense, but along the ground the shrubbery was thick and you were weaving between crooked branches and curling flora as you went. You really didn’t want another cut to match the one on your thigh— especially since the plants on this planet were known for the toxins they’d developed as a defence system. You didn’t want to think what would happen if any of those entered your bloodstream.

Taehyung had parked the ship nearby and it wasn’t long before you finally burst through the treeline and came face to face with your ship. The metals and materials on the exterior that had once shone in pride now sported dents and scorch marks from lasers and beams you hadn’t been quick enough to dodge, upkeep a lot more difficult when you were one of your solar systems most wanted and on the run— supplies were sparse and parts even more so.

The cargo bay lay open, ramp down and awaiting you as the ship’s engine thrummed and prepared for a prompt take-off. Taehyung was no doubt in the cockpit, communicating to the rest of your crew and keeping an eye on the enemy.

“Pull up the ramp!” you ordered as you climbed into the cargo bay, feeling the immediate jolt in the ship as the ramp groaned and lifted, sealing the large doorway with a reassuring thunk. Being so close to the engine room you could hear it thrumming, rumbling as the ship’s thrusters warmed up and prepared to lift.

You climbed from the bay with ease, slipping into the main hallway and running towards the cockpit. A barrage of sounds became known to you at once as you burst inside, quickly taking your seat in the seat alongside Taehyung’s. You might have been the main pilot of your ship and crew, but Taehyung had been your second in command, and he knew how to fly. You flew into action with ease, listening as you hooked your earpiece back into the ships radio and Namjoon’s voice filled your ear, broken only by slight static in the middle.

“There’s only two of them but they’re both commander vessels— kkksssshbfbf— they haven’t spotted us yet but if we remain where we are they will soon.”

A dread you were used to feeling at this point filled you; it had been the same two commanders that had been hunting you this whole time. Taehyung nodded, flipping the necessary switches and grasping the thruster, his warm eyes turning to you as he awaited your next commands.

“Alright, get out of here,” you ordered the rest of your crew, reaching and pulling down the ship’s defence controls. The joysticks slid into your grip with practiced ease, and you felt the ship’s cannons unfold from where they were stored in the exterior in unison. “Head to J-009, go as quickly as you can and once you get there lay low. We won’t be far behind, we’ve just got to shake them first.”

“Affirmative,” Namjoon sounded, and then you could hear him instructing the other two in the ship he was currently on. You thought you heard Hoseok whine, but pushed it from your mind to instead focus on your current situation.

“Okay Taehyung, get us out of here,” you instructed, watching the screen before you and adjusting the canons accordingly.

The male nodded, listing his actions as he did them, like he’d been trained to do. The muted tone of the ships low-level AI greeted your ears and Taehyung grasped the rotational controls in his other hand, pulling back on the thruster and launching the ship off the ground with a jolt. The ship buzzed as the landing gear retracted back into their storage spaces and Taehyung pitched the nose of the ship upwards, resting on the thrusters and preparing to leave the planet’s atmosphere.

He was two seconds too late. Before he could pull back the ship jolted violently twice in quick succession and veered, metal groaning, the screens before you lighting up with warnings and loud piercing notifications that told you you’d just been hit. You cursed, having forgotten to pull up the particle barrier in your rush to board and take off. There wasn’t enough time to do it now— it took three whole seconds to warm up before it was fully functional, and after the blow you’d just taken it wouldn’t be good if it was struck while warming up.

The screens blared, the ship’s AI sounding a loud warning, “Attention: rear landing gear on right side severely damaged. Rear right shield generator severely damaged. Suspected damage to right fuel tank and navigation system: running assessment.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you cursed loudly, removing one hand from the canon controls to grasp your own rotational joystick and turn the ship while Taehyung managed damage momentarily. As expected, the looming hull of not one, but two commander vessels entered your field of vision and you cursed once more, returning your grasp to the canon controls. “Taehyung, we can’t focus on damage right now— we need to get out of here. I’ll cover us, but get us out, okay?”

From your peripheral vision you saw Taehyung nod and take the rotational controls back in his grasp. Taehyung’s screen switched to the very front of the ship as he turned the nose once more, and yours stayed locked on the vessels behind you for combat. You shifted your hands forward, the canons extending and shifting with them, and aimed carefully.

“Alright, Taehyung, go!” you ordered, flicking the clear case from the buttons at the head of the joysticks and pushing them in with your thumbs. Beams of concentrated energy blasted at the vessels, and your impeccable aim had the lasers hitting right near where you knew the flight deck to be.

Unlike you, your enemy had the time and thought to put up their particle barriers— your shots hadn’t put a single dent in the actual ship, but the impact upon the barrier was enough to give you an opening to escape. Taehyung pulled the thruster back and the ship shot off, powering through the resistance that the planet’s atmosphere posed. You were exiting fast, but nowhere near as fast as you should have been— the damage they’d managed to do to your ship was impeding your escape more than you anticipated, and a sick feeling of dread began to fill your abdomen.

As you sped away you aimed another couple of shots, each of them meeting the same fate as those before. The massive, hulking commander vessels were something your smaller ship didn’t stand a chance against— your craft may have been built for speed, manoeuvring and quick offense, but theirs was built for battle. From the beginning your only chance at surviving the encounter had lain in your ability to flee, and now even that was in jeopardy.

“Assessment complete: right fuel tank intact; navigation system has sustained medium damage. Assessment also found: right thruster sustained light damage. Maintenance advised.”

You cursed— a damaged navigation system meant that if you shot off into hyperspace there was no guarantee where you’d end up. You grit your teeth as you fired another two shots, the barrier blocking them just as you’d expected. The second commander vessel veered around the side of the other and began in your direction at an alarming speed. The apprehension curling in your stomach intensified.

Taehyung did his best to lead the ship away from the planet, hurtling from the atmosphere with the commander vessels hot on your tail and gaining. Your mind whirled trying to come up with solutions to your problem, but there were none. With the current state your ship was in, you wouldn’t be able to get away fast enough— speed was what you usually relied upon, since the commander vessels were significantly larger, but with your right thruster damaged you didn’t have a chance of getting away quick enough that way. Your next plan would usually be hyperdrive, but with the ship’s navigation system so damaged… there was no promising where in space your ship would arrive.

Taehyung jerked the rotational joystick to the right, dipping out of the way just in time to dodge the large laser beam that shot your way. Despite the fact that you knew it would do no good, you aimed your canons once more and fired at the vessel closest to you, as a means of distraction if nothing else.

“y/n, we’re not going to be able to get away like this,” Taehyung said, a note of desperation colouring the edges of his tone. Your teeth sank into your lip— you knew that, you knew, but you didn’t know how to fix this situation. A glance at Taehyung’s expression told you he too knew the only other alternative you could possibly take, and you turned your attention back to the vessels rapidly gaining on your ship.

You spoke, voicing your concerns as he rolled the ship out of the line of fire once more, the spacecraft shuddering, “Tae, with the damage we’ve sustained, I don’t know if we’ll—”

The male turned to you, and for a moment you weren’t looking at Captain Kim, your second in command and your crew’s genius engineer and co-pilot, but Kim Taehyung, your best friend and the person you would absolutely die for. You bit your lip, reading the look in his dark eyes and turning back to your screen. “Alright, prepare the ship for hyperdrive. Input coordinates for J-009, and let’s hope it gets us at least somewhere close. If the navigation system doesn’t fail us, the thrusters might— but at least we’ll be far enough away that we’ve lost them.”

Taehyung nodded, quickly inputting the coordinates and flicking switches. You released the canon controls, pushing them so they retracted back to the ceiling, and fastened yourself to the seat before leaning forward and preparing the rest of the ship for hyperdrive. The navigation system wasn’t your only concern— entering hyperdrive when the ship was already damaged in other parts posed the risk of worsening the damage, and if you were hit again before you managed to leave then it was possible you could lose parts of the ship in the process.

But you didn’t have a choice.

“Ship is secured, preparation for hyperdrive complete,” Taehyung spoke aloud, flicking up the plastic casing over a keypad and entering the code only yourself and your crew knew. You watched, stomach cramping in anxiety, and input the code in your own keypad— this ship required the code from both co-pilots when in dual-pilot mode to unlock and engage hyperdrive.

“Code entered,” Taehyung whispered, and for a moment it was silent. You watched on your screen as the vessels grew closer, a glow beginning to gather around the canon as they prepared another shot— one that might very well be your last. You clutched the necklace around your neck anxiously, seeking any and all comfort you could get; you’d come so far, gods, just please let you survive this. You had the object you’d been searching for but your job wasn’t done yet.

“Engaging hyperdrive.”

Taehyung’s thumb pressed into the button and your ship shot off, space warping across your screen, just split-seconds before the vessels fired another shot into the space where you’d been. You sailed smoothly for all of two long, heavy seconds before your ship groaned and creaked, beginning to shake violently. The AI spoke up once more, informing you of the rapidly growing list of damage to the ship and it was all you could do to close your eyes and try not to grow nauseous from the shaking.

Alarms blared into the air, and you heard Taehyung fastening himself to the seat beside you as the ship rattled and vibrated in ways it most definitely shouldn’t be. There was a loud bang from the right of your ship, and you were thrown from hyperdrive and hurtling through space at an alarming speed.

“Warning: right thrusters compromised. Maintenance advised. Thrusters disabled to prevent further damage.”

The last thing you saw amongst the crimson flashing across your screen was a planet, cerulean and jade in the light of the nearest star, and the ship was hurtling towards it at an alarming speed. Heat glazed the sides of the ship as you entered the atmosphere too fast, too quick to register. Before you could even think there was a loud, resounding BANG—

Everything went black.

 x     x     x     x     x

The first thing you were aware of, was the burning sensation encompassing your thigh and right arm. The air was warm, and something was dripping onto your face, slowly bringing you further and further into consciousness. A gasp tore from your throat, your eyes wrenching open and blinking rapidly. On your next inhale your throat constricted, rejecting the air wrought with the thick, cloying smoke from the wreckage around you and you coughed violently, falling from your place on the pilot’s seat and onto the ground. The belt had snapped, and you didn’t want to imagine where you’d been right now if you hadn’t been wearing it in the first place. You coughed and hacked on your knees, trying to clear your lungs and rid your mouth of the acrid taste coating your tongue and throat. When you could finally breathe once more, you tried to ease your body from the floor of your wrecked ship.

Your limbs protested vehemently against movement, but your heart ached more at the sight of what had once been your pride and joy lying in ruins around you. Tears stung your eyes from a combination of smoke, pain, and emotional distress, but you refused to let them fall. Instead, finally bursting free of the fog that had been lingering over your mind since awakening, your thoughts went straight to the other person that had been on board with you.

“Taehyung!” you gasped, throat raw and voice a mere croak. You coughed, holding your singed sleeve over your mouth in a half-hearted attempt at filtering the smoke from your breath. You spun, your eyes searching for a tell-tale sign of your co-pilot— a sign that he was still alive.

There was a groan from your left and you spun fast— too fast, you nearly toppled on your weak legs— and lurched towards the noise. “Taehyung!”

The front of the cockpit had been blown apart upon impact, the metal exterior and frame peeling away in front of Taehyung’s seat and dread began to fill you before you caught sight of the prone form several feet in front of the ship. You ran forward, legs shaky, and rejoiced the fact that it seemed he’d only flown from the ship after impact— things mightn’t have been so fortunate had he flown earlier.

“Taehyung, Tae— Tae, come on, wake up man,” you urged, sounding somewhat desperate, as you fell to your knees next to your best friend and checked him for wounds before rolling him carefully onto his back.

The blonde blinked blearily, coughing slightly; he wasn’t in the ship and therefore wasn’t surrounded by as much smoke, but the burnt, singed smell in the air certainly wasn’t pleasant to wake up to.

“y/n?” he croaked, blinking as your form came into focus before his eyes. He immediately lurched up, a groan sounding as he threw his arms around you. “Shit, you’re— we’re alive! God, I’m so glad we survived.”

Even in a situation like this he managed to make you chuckle. You returned his embrace before he was pulling away, looking over your form before he even thought to look over his own. His eyes zeroed in on your arm, and then your thigh. His voice grew high-pitched, “You’re bleeding!”

This was news to you. Surprised, you looked down to see you were, in fact, bleeding from the arm and thigh. You remembered slicing your leg on a crystal in the cave, but you didn’t know where the large gash above your bicep came from. You nodded in affirmation to his words, slightly desensitised after the whole ordeal— honestly, the outcome could have been a lot worse. You were happy things had turned out this way. Sure, the ship was totalled, but the two of you were alive and neither of you were mortally wounded or anything similar. Although, from the way Taehyung was freaking out and ripping strips of cloth from the bottom of his shirt, you might have been the only one that thought that.

Even in his frenzy to take care of you he managed to stop himself, teeth finding his lip as he recalled the basics of his first aid training. Every garrison cadet was trained in first aid, it was one of the first things you learned when you began your training.

“We need to clean your wounds before we bandage them,” he mused, significantly calmer now that he’d gotten over the initial shock of the whole ordeal. He bunched the cloth up in his hands, rising onto shaky legs with a soft groan, and proceeded to help you up so you were standing with him. You shifted your weight, testing your legs, and you were glad to find that despite the pain you were adjusting quite quickly after crashing your ship into a foreign planet. That reminded you, where exactly were you?

You turned your gaze around you, trying to discern which planet you’d managed to crash on while Taehyung continued, wobbling about and peering around in search for something in particular, “Need water,” he mumbled to himself, blinking through the smoke that was finally beginning to disperse. Your burning wreck of a ship was now just a wreck, strewn about in the middle of a forest on some alien planet. “Or any fluid, really.”

Your eyes were trained on the flora surrounding you, in awe at the way the plants shifted and swayed in the slight breeze, stunningly beautiful flowers perching on the end of curling branches and glowing in mesmerising bioluminescent blues and pinks where shade fell upon them. Glowing spots speckled over the leaves and trunks, the grass-like organism beneath your feet not exactly luminous but not dull, either. You were surrounded by such vibrant and peculiar colours and shapes, you couldn’t help but be entranced. “Taehyung, this place is beautiful.”

He huffed, having trained himself to ignore your nonsense, and you were brought suddenly back to the present. You turned, making your way over to him. “Do you recognise any of these plants? I have no idea where we are.”

Along with first aid, while you underwent training as cadets you were also taught about alien lifeforms and the flora and fauna present on other planets significant to the union. Of course, it wasn’t information that everyone remembered in full, but it could help in situations like this where you found yourselves on a foreign planet without any idea where you were.

Except neither of you recognised any of the flora enough to know where you were. A slight flaw in the system, but it couldn’t be helped.

“No…” he said slowly, squinting into the distance. “We can breathe though, so this place is definitely similar enough to Earth. The plants and trees… they look kind of familiar, but I can’t place where I’ve seen them before.”

You hummed in agreement, letting out a surprised noise when Taehyung suddenly grasped your hand and moved towards the back of the ship. The cargo bay lay painfully open, the massive door torn from the ship and crumpled several metres away. The blonde let go of you to duck inside, disappearing only to re-emerge moments later with a water bottle and the smoking remains of what had once been your first aid kit in hand. Your guess was the rubbing alcohol within had caught fire, and to be honest you weren’t really surprised. Carrying outdated first aid packs had its risks, after all, but you’d stored the newest and best one on the ship Namjoon was on and so had been left with this. You followed obediently when Taehyung guided you to a crate that had clearly flown from the ship upon impact but somehow remained miraculously intact. You took a seat and he placed the makeshift bandages and ruined kit beside you.

You peered around as he cleaned and wrapped your wounds, the occasional hiss escaping you as he rinsed dirt and soot from the open lacerations.

“I don’t know where we are, but we should probably get off this planet as soon as possible,” you were stating the obvious, but speaking your thoughts out loud allowed you to organise them better. Taehyung hummed along, doe eyes focused on the task at hand— you winced as he moved to the large gash on your arm that was still dribbling blood. You had to remove your jacket so he could access it, and you were glad it seemed to be relatively warm on this planet. “I don’t think the ship is going to help much, and we don’t know if there’s a civilisation here let alone if its friendly…”

You turned your head to watch him work, gears churning in your mind. “We need to let Namjoon and the others know what happened… do you think the radio is still in one piece?”

Taehyung pinned you with a look that told you exactly what kind of state he thought the radio was in, and you resisted the inappropriate smile that wanted to tug your lips as he went back to work with a sassy roll of his eyes. “Honestly, I’m surprised we’re in one piece after that landing. Hoping anything else survived in that mess of an aircraft is wishful thinking.”

You wanted to pout and rebuke his blunt statements, but honestly he was right. You were lucky to be in one piece, let alone alive, after that horrendous landing. You kept your gaze on Taehyung’s deft fingers as they tied the strips of his shirt and remaining bandages around your arm, silent for a few moments. Taehyung didn’t speak, but let out a sigh once he was done, running a hand through his blonde locks.

“It would probably do us good to have a look at it anyway,” he shot you a smile, “After all, I am the best mechanical engineer the garrison had to offer— how could I rightfully claim that title if I couldn’t fix one measly radio?”

You snorted, rolling your eyes, and Taehyung flashed you a boxy grin.

Minutes later, as you stood before the remains of what used to be the ship’s radio now strewn across the dirt, the grin fell from his face. You both stared for a moment, in awe almost at just how destroyed the radio had gotten.

You let out a sigh, “Tae, it’s irreparable—”

“No!” he cut you off, squatting and making as though to reach for a part but his hand hovered, unable to decide which— and there were a lot. “No, it’s fine. I’m sure I can fix it. It just might… take a while, dig it?”

You gave him an odd look at the weird speech and simply shrugged, too tired to bother formulating a response. You let him tinker with the remains, moving back to the crate and plopping down with a groan. Your wounds were wrapped now, but your entire body still ached.

There was a peculiar burning at the nape of your neck that continued down the cervical portion of your spine and had been present ever since you’d woken, and was gradually making itself more known. You wondered idly if it had anything to do with the mark that had appeared there months ago when you’d first left on your journey… before you dismissed the idea. While you didn’t exactly have an explanation for the pretty, intricate tattoo-like marking that had appeared on your skin out of nowhere, you were pretty sure the burning ache was just from whiplash or something. You tilted your neck, stretching the tense muscles in an attempt to ease the pain. It helped a bit.

Taehyung was mumbling to himself as he hovered over the radio scraps, organising pieces this way and that in an attempt to make sense of them, and you were left somewhat to your own devices. With a sigh, you decided to be useful and search the ship for anything that wasn’t absolutely destroyed in the landing, and eased off the crate with a soft groan. You made to move towards the wreckage, boots heavy on your feet, when there was a sharp crack that had you freezing in your steps. The hair on the back of your neck rose and you had the sudden, overwhelming feeling you were being watched.

“Tae,” you called, glaring when he ignored you for the radio. “Taehyung! I think there’s—”

You didn’t get to continue, a sharp feeling of alarm piercing your gut and your trained senses going off. You ducked and rolled, dodging just in time as an object pierced the air where you’d just been standing with a light whistling sound. You gasped, eyes taking in the carved dagger now embedded in the side of your totalled ship before you spun to face the tree-line where it had come from. Taehyung’s head whipped up, his hands full of radio parts and chocolate eyes wide. “y/n?”

“Shit, Taehyung there’s—” Another whistling sound pierced the air before you could continue and you rolled out of the way just in time once more, using the momentum to tumble to your feet and knock Taehyung out of the way of the knife aimed for him. The radio parts cluttered to the ground along with your bodies and you groaned in unison, your wounds singing out in hot, throbbing pain.

You rolled off the male, scrambling on your back and trying to find purchase with your boots in the soft soil the landing had uprooted beneath you. You attempts were halted, however, by a gleam before your eyes and sudden sharp point at your throat. Your lungs froze, throat constricting in fear as you gazed up into the deep eyes of a masked form, eerily human in build, the freckles that littered its body glowing a dangerous bright crimson, luminous against its skin. All at once recognition lit in the back of your mind and you knew exactly which planet you’d managed to land on. Dread filled your stomach.

Apparently there was civilisation here after all.

x     x     x     x     x     x

You wished you could have commented on the walk through the forest to get to where you were now, but alas you hadn’t seen any of it. You’d been out cold— thanks to some sedative you’d been shot with in your moment of weakness— probably thrown over someone’s shoulder the entire time like nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and only now were you beginning to awake.

Apparently just in time.

All of a sudden you were dropped to the floor unceremoniously, a pained groan tearing from your throat as you landed on your wounded arm. There was a similar sound as what you guessed to be Taehyung was dumped next to you, his leg flying and kicking you in the shin. You let out a sharp yelp in response, glaring at the blonde while you tried to right yourself into an upright position as best as you could with your hands bound behind your back. He looked back at you with wide eyes, seeming every bit like he was panicking internally and to be honest you didn’t blame him. Not only had you crash landed on some alien planet in a bid to escape people that wanted you dead, but after said landing you’d been jumped in the middle of the forest by the planet’s inhabitants and now you were god knows where, completely at their mercy. Needless to say, this wasn’t shaping up to be the best day of your lives.

The aliens that had taken you— you were just going to call them men, since they looked so eerily similar to your human selves— spoke amongst the other, the language completely foreign against your ears, their speech riddled with clicks and trills that you’d hardly known such human-shaped mouths were capable of making. It bothered you that you couldn’t understand a word of it, as ridiculous as it was. You’d studied many alien languages and were proficient in a good amount— it was something that had helped land you such a high position at such a young age, back in the life you left behind.

Taehyung’s panicked eyes met yours as the ‘men’ spoke above you, before you turned your gaze to the room you currently found yourselves in. “y/n, please tell me we’re not where I think we are,” he whispered desperately, kicking you again when you didn’t respond. “y/n! This is serious!”

You turned to him, mouth turning down. Honestly? You were fucking terrified right now. You’d read about this planet, heard of these aliens— the Kelkie were almost never seen venturing amongst the stars, not much known or even spoken about them besides the fact they bore a striking resemblance to humans, told apart by the luminescent patterns over their skin and other minor features, and were rumoured to be the most bloodthirsty, ruthless race to ever grace the galaxy in the history of creation.  All you’d ever heard of them, including in your time as a cadet, painted them as cruel, merciless monsters with a bloodlust that could never truly be sated. They were the horror stories parents told misbehaving children at bedtime to keep them in line, the threat whispered against darkened hallways in shady interspecies bars and hangouts across the galaxy. They were the ultimate warriors, the deadliest weapons, and you’d never seen one in your life before this very day.

Yes, you were terrified.

You didn’t want to be, you wanted to withhold judgment— it wasn’t your style to blindly believe rumours spread with no viable proof. Everyone knew of the Kelkie, but strangely enough, when asked, they didn’t know anyone who had ever met one— the same went for you. You had no way to verify what kind of species they were, what kind of creature, for yourself.

“I know it’s serious!” you hissed back at Taehyung, observing the room around you so if an opportunity arose, you had some idea of where to run. It was a large room, the floors a decadent combination of obsidian-like stone and something resembling marble, inscribed with runes and symbols, patterns and pictures that threatened to distract you from your current task at hand. “Stop whispering so loud or you’re going to get us in trouble!”

Taehyung glared at you, kicking you again and you groaned, catching the attention of one of the men. You’d surmised that they had to be something similar to soldiers, guards maybe. They wore masks across their eyes that hid their identities and the glowing freckles across their cheeks— one of the only other things you knew about the Kelkie was that their spots displayed the emotions they were feeling at that moment, and you guessed that hiding them was a tactic that helped them on the battlefield.

Then again, the arms of the men were bare of any garment, and the freckles were on full display. Maybe you were reading too much into it.

The Kelkie that had noticed your pained noise looked down at you, saying something at you in his tongue that bounced right back off your human ears. You blinked up at him owlishly despite your fearful trembling, and the alien growled slightly at your lack of response. What did he expect? You clearly couldn’t understand him.

Taehyung was shooting you looks that clearly told you to quit doing whatever you were doing, and you decided after catching sight of the sharp, carved blades at the Kelkie’s waist that it would probably be best to listen. You averted your gaze down, hand coming to finger the necklace and pendant resting against the top of your sternum. You heard the guard shift back to face the other and resume the conversation, and turned your thoughts to something more pleasant, ignoring Taehyung for the meanwhile. Your eyes shifted to the feet of the guards and you pondered their clothing.

It was a strange material, nothing like anything you’d ever seen before. It moved like fluid with each shift of their bodies and shimmered in a fashion similar to silk from Earth. It was pitch black, glinting midnight blue in the light, and over their upper half it acted as a vest with a high collar that stretched up their neck and fit their form until their hips, where the material split into something resembling coattails on either side of their body. The pants were straight until the ankle where they flared and then fastened in a harem-like fashion, tucked into ankle boots that were lined and plated with that looked like a metal similar to silver. For a species rumoured to be bloodthirsty and renowned warriors, they had only a surprisingly small amount of armour. From what you could see, it was only the boots on their feet and the plated bracers over their wrists. There was a metal choker around their necks, but it looked like it was more for decoration than anything, along with the silver dangling from their ears and adorning their fingers.

Taehyung waited a while before he tried talking to you again. His eyes sought yours once more, voice a hushed whisper, “y/n, how are we going to get out of here?”

You resisted the urge to shrug, because you knew it would stress him out if he knew you didn’t have a plan, but also because he’d probably kick you again and your shin was already throbbing.

“I’m working on it,” you murmured, peering around the massive hall once more. Honestly, there wasn’t an entrance or an exit that was close enough and provided a good enough chance of escape; you had no idea how you would even begin trying to get out of here. Even if there was a good enough exit, your captors were faster than you, stronger than you— they’d be on you in the time it took you to draw in your next breath. Something about the situation did draw your focus, however, and your eyebrows drew together. “Why are we just sitting here in this room? They’re not doing anything, it’s like they’re waiting for some—"

Before you could finish a large set of ornate doors swung open to your right, your head whipping to face them as the guards shot ramrod straight. Within seconds they were gripping you and Taehyung and dragging you closer to a large obsidian throne that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t noticed before. Taehyung shot you a horrified, panicked look and you couldn’t even offer a smile of reassurance because god damn it you were currently feeling the exact same way. The guards had picked you up with ease with only one arm and soon enough you were being dropped unceremoniously on the ground once more.

You landed on your arm yet again and couldn’t help the groan that escaped you, only just dodging Taehyung’s leg as it kicked out just like it had last time. God, these aliens were rude. They could have at least walked you over instead of manhandling you.

The guards began speaking once more in their foreign tongue as you struggled to sit up, abdominal muscles aching from the constant effort. You were still so sore from fucking crash landing on an alien planet and you were only accruing more injuries as you went.

In focusing on the pain currently making itself very well-acquainted with you, you hadn’t noticed the three other figures that had entered through the door and prompted your sudden relocation before the throne. At Taehyung’s gasp and the sound of a new voice, your gaze whipped over and you froze.

The Kelkie currently speaking was the shortest of the three, raven hair pushed back with some strands falling over his forehead. His eyes were dark as they flicked between yourself, Taehyung, and the guards and his voice was light and airy as it caressed the clicks and trills of his mother tongue, lips plump and pink. His form was toned, dressed in garb similar to the guards but decidedly more ornate and lighter in colour, and his warm skin was scattered with fine freckles that glowed icy blue and resembled the smattering of stars in the night sky. He was shorter, but his entire form emanated power and your senses were telling you that right now you were in danger.

Taehyung’s leg was trembling against yours and you nudged him softly, subtly, before flicking your gaze to one of the other Kelkie as he began speaking. His tone was deeper, and his eyes trained solely on the guards as he spoke. He was taller than the first, but dressed in a similar fashion and his own raven hair wasn’t slicked back, his freckles glowing deep blue. All of a sudden panic began to well up in you as the gravity of the situation finally began to sink in— fuck, you were going to die.

Immediately your eyes began searching for an out, an exit close enough that you and Taehyung could make it and have an actual chance at getting away. Your heart stopped in your chest and your blood froze in your veins as the final person in the room spoke.

His voice was powerful, commanding, catching your attention without any extra effort on his part and even without looking you could tell it was directed at you. Taehyung trembled, and you slowly turned your gaze to the Kelkie standing in the middle of the other two, his dark, doe-like eyes boring straight into yours as he spoke at you in a language you couldn’t understand. Your breath caught in your throat because standing right before you was the most ethereally handsome being you had ever seen.

His stance was strong, unyielding, and he was bulkier than the other two yet had the kind of body proportions that had heat fighting to rush to your cheeks. He was dressed in that same silken material, almost obsidian over his form, but glinting deep burgundy instead of midnight blue in the light. The edges were embroidered in silver, the choker around his neck and the bracers over his arms engraved and shining along with the thin circlet over his forehead and the silver in his ears. Instantly you could tell that he was the most important one in the room, the most powerful, and you were instantaneously afraid and in awe.

He was speaking to you, voice a pleasant timbre against your ears even if you didn’t know what he was saying, and when you didn’t respond his eyebrows furrowed. He turned to the guards, his own inky locks flicking as he demanded something of them. They responded obediently and he was looking at you once more— you couldn’t take the intensity, the weight of his gaze, but you couldn’t avert your eyes. He watched you a moment, gaze flicking between you and Taehyung, before he said something shortly. Immediately the guards grasped you once more and fear spiked behind your ribs, stomach cramping in panic.

He strode forward and instinctively you tried to pull yourself from the guard’s gasp, your efforts achieving nothing but an annoyed growl in response as you stayed firmly in place, his grip like iron on your arm and digging into the bandaged wound. You stopped only at the sharp pain, wincing, and it was all the opportunity the Kelkie needed to step closer and press two long fingers against your forehead.

It was like you were jolted at his touch, a spark of electricity coursing beneath your skin and warmth gathering beneath his fingers where they pressed against your forehead. There was a slight, sharp pain on both sides of your head, your brain throbbing against your skull for a moment before he pulled back, fingers glowing slightly. He exhaled, eyes closed a moment while you recovered from the sudden and weird experience before he opened them and pinned you with his intense gaze once more.

“You,” he said, your eyes shooting wide at the sound of your own language leaving his mouth instead of the one you’d been hearing the past couple of minutes. His voice caressed the notes and sounds with a clear accent, having difficulty articulating words and sounds so different from what his mouth was used to. “Who are you and why have you come to this planet.”

It wasn’t a query so much as a demand, and before you could speak the guard holding your arm yanked it, slicing your binds and holding out your wrist for the male to see. To your further shock and surprise, he spoke in your tongue as well, “Your majesty, the mark on her wrist.”

You could have sworn your heart stopped in your chest at the sound of the title, your eyes whipping to the aforementioned male in horror. Your majesty. He was a king, an emperor. You heard Taehyung cursing softly next to you as the ruler of this planet stood before you and gazed at the tattooed marks on your wrist.

His reaction was instantaneous, eyes shooting to your face and a hiss escaping his teeth as the smattering of freckles over his cheeks and nose flared bright red. “The garrison?” he almost snarled, voice a low rumble in his throat. You cursed yourself for the excited beat your heart skipped at the sound. “The Intergalactic Union is not welcome here— breaking the accord in place has dire consequences, and you will be punished accordingly—”

“No!” you gasped, eyes wide as you yanked your wrist back, the accursed numbers inked on your skin glaring back up at you. You rushed to explain, very aware that your life was currently on the line, “No, not the garrison! I’m not— we’re no longer in the garrison, no longer in the Union. We defected.”

The King pins you both with a narrow glare, teeth gritting. The shorter of the two beside him is observing your every move with shrewd, dark eyes, his arms crossed. “If you are no longer in the garrison, then what is your business here, girl?” he demanded, and you resisted the urge to cower that rose suddenly within you. “You come to my planet in a garrison ship, bearing the mark of a soldier, and you set my forest ablaze in your arrival. These are not actions of peace.”

You gulped, realising how bad this must have looked. The Intergalactic Union may have composed a majority of the galaxies inhabitants, but that didn’t mean it was always looked upon fondly— you knew better than anyone that missions and actions issued by the union to be performed by factions like the garrison weren’t always on the morally correct end of the spectrum. Decisions were always made at a price, and for many that price was too much to withstand, to accept, to support.

“I apologise for the damage our arrival has caused,” you said evenly, trying to regulate the hurried, anxious beat of your heart. You didn’t doubt that with their trained senses they could hear each panicked thump it made against your ribcage. “It was not our intention to land here. We were fleeing from the garrison and our ship was damaged, so when we entered hyperdrive… it did not take us where we meant to go. We didn’t plan to crash here.”

The King’s eyebrows rose, markings shifting from hot vermillion to a shade between crimson and indigo. The taller of his companions spoke, arms held behind his back as his dark eyes met yours, expression hard. “Why would the garrison be chasing their own soldiers?” he demanded, the unspoken threat in his tone sending a shiver of fear down your spine.

“We… My crew and I defected, several months ago,” you answered truthfully, pretending the slight shake in your voice hadn’t been present at all. “They’re after me because I stole something important from them and they want it back.”

The shorter male let out a humourless scoff, shifting his weight on his legs. “Stole? So you are a thief, then.”

You grimaced, since he technically wasn’t wrong and you couldn’t really deny it. “Well, technically…” you stopped yourself, rushing to defend your actions, aware that is wasn’t just your life on the line right now. “But it wasn’t for no reason! I did it to stop them from doing something horrible.”

The short one went to interrogate you further when the King cut him off. “Everything you’re telling me right now could easily be a lie,” he said, markings a cool ice blue as he glared down at you and Taehyung with a firm, unwavering gaze, jaw clenched and a tick appearing before he continued, “I will not trust humans who trespass on my planet while bearing the mark of the garrison.”

You were scared, panic filling your lungs at his words at what he was going to do. The King turned to the guards. “Take them to the east wing. I want them restrained and on separate sides of the room. They are not allowed out, and no one aside from Seokjin, Jimin and myself are to enter. Understood?”

The guards nodded immediately and the King turned his hard gaze to you. His eyes burned your skin where they raked over your form. “We will hold you for one week. If you are truly on the run from the garrison as you say you are, then they will not come to rescue you and at the end of the week you will still be here. If they come,” his marks flashed vivid crimson, dark eyes boring into your soul. “Then I will kill you and every single human that comes to retrieve you myself, for attempting to deceive me and breaking the accord between Kelkie and The Union.”

Fear struck home in your heart, and having said all he wanted the King nodded to the guards. “Take them,” he ordered, and they immediately hauled you and Taehyung from the floor. They dragged you, strong fingers digging into your wound, and your eyes fell upon the King of the deadliest race known to the galaxy and his advisors.

His dark gaze followed you the entire way out, a different colour tinting his marks, and even when you were hauled from your room the sight remained burned into your mind’s eye.

The marks had been deep, reddish pink.

masterlist | moodboard | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | complete

[rametarin]

Pondering space battles

Simply put, with weight not really being a huge issue for spacecraft, volume isn’t either. With no issue in atmospheres getting in the way, you also have an ideal environment for lasers, as well as using laser guided arc lightning.

Missiles, also, are a fuck of a lot more maneuverable than the ships. And as we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of  force fields right now, we have to assume we’re limited to existing earth materials. Unless we find some massive wonderful Unobtanium Adamantium that changes up the game, we have.. at best... a 3,422 C melting point for tungsten.

This is NOT a huge number when you’re talking about the heat generated by lasers capable of concentrating ungodly amounts of lumens into a space the width of a dime and burning through a ship’s hull by vaporizing everything in the way.

So the ships cannot maneuver faster than the multple-nuclear-plant powered unggwaggawatt laser can fire. There IS no proper defense if a space ship decides to light it up with a laser.

But there’s also no way to stop a sufficiently sized explosion, either. I’m not sure how tiny we can make nuclear explosions, but suffice to say, there’s no material object that could survive against an exposion big enough. Simple as.

Then we have railguns and/or light gas guns. I don’t have to explain how a kilogram of aluminum fired at just-sub-light speeds hitting things could be extremely bad.

So it occurs to me that there’s only really one defense in space that matters in any capacity. At best you could project some sort of blocking drone that takes the blow for you.

This isn’t going to stop a laser. A solid cube of tungsten would get holes blasted straight through it. But if the weapon in question is a volley of missiles? Then I could see remotely piloted or AI controlled ‘remora’ type space drones flying in the way of incoming explosive charges and either taking the hit or exploding to themselves take the big missile out of commission.

Because a missile’s path is generally linear, and even if it isn’t, you can have an entire hive fleet of tiny drones with tiny explosions programmed to be far enough away from the mother ship that their going kaboom won’t affect the mamaship much, but could conceivably destroy an incoming missile.

It’s for this reason I imagine that AI operated or passenger operated drone ships meant to hang around the big ship will be standard fare, if the ship is big enough. And economically, it just makes sense.

The nearest equivalent would be intelligent mines programmed to stay oh so close to a navy cruise liner, but intercept incoming torpedos. An AI controlled bomb is not a missile, and doesn’t have to be. All it has to be is in the way and carry a big enough kaboom to set off the explosion or ruin the propulsion/trajectory of the incoming missile. So, we’re talking a few hundred dollars, maximum.

A missile, on the other hand, is designed to send a payload big enough to make whatever it hits, usually something armored and important, go kaboom. As a result, it’s engineered to go fast and carry a big boom. It’s substantially larger and carries a payload sufficient to damage a warship.

A defending drone as a shield doesn’t need to carry a kaboom big enough to threaten a warship. Just a missile.

It’s for this reason I just can’t imagine missiles being a big weapon in space. Economically, it just doesn’t make any sense if you imagine lightening fast AI machines that self-destruct to destroy very expensive, very fast, very powerful missiles. The economy of little kabooms vs big ones will always be better. Which means you can fit more of them on a ship than you could missiles big enough to really threaten or damage a warship.

I’m afraid space battles are probably going to be fought with fuckoff powerful lasers, or shit like directed gamma rays. The first, no material can resist vaporozing under enough wattage a laser. The second, no material can shield from it if someone is crazy enough to make a directed beam of it.

Then there’s neutrino beams. And, well. They’ve explored the concept and possibility of using focused neutrino beams to disable nuclear material. In theory, this applies not just to nuclear bombs, but reactors, as well. Neutrino beams would not be shieldable against, and they could target the engines from any point of the ship.

So I just cannot imagine warfare in space would be very exciting. Odds are space warfare is going to involve a lot of stealth and ultra-long-range high energy weaponry using very very focused, narrow beams as sniper fire. And logically speaking, at that point it’s not about the size of the gun, it’s about how many guns you bring to the table. So enormous ships outfitted with a million ports and a million eyes constantly searching for anomalies with the and of very sensitive instruments, or a million escort drones, each of them armed with at least a single shot capable of vaporizing a ship’s hull or an enemy drone.

At best we’d get weird fireworks light shows of Drone AIs dogfighting using predictive algorithms, since at those speeds humans would not be able to keep up with them. And to a human perspective, the battle would be over in a moment. Leaving a million obscenely powerful laser armed drones capable of turning a whole ship into swiss cheese.

Because while they may have very few charges, the entire point of them is to have so many spaced out that destroying them all fast enough isn’t possible. Whereas if you have one great big powerful gun on a ship, it can be located and destroyed, iaijutsu style. Decisive, lightning blow, and your offense is completely disabled.

But if every single bullet that would otherwise be in a single chamber of a single gun floats around ominously behind you, far enough away that something that could kill you would be safely too far away to hurt it, you still have to contend with that bullet acting independently.

So as far as I can tell, the only logical defense in space is a good offense. And the only viable offense is a powerful beam weapon with long range, and lots of them as opposed to having an unstoppable super-laser. Since, when it comes down to it, the laser only has to be so powerful on a main gun ship to roast one side of an enemy spaceship and every single possible drone it could be carrying in a single file line, for miles between it and the ship.

How unnerving.

[brigdh]

Reading Definitely Not Wednesday

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. A space opera set in the relatively near future. Humans have colonized Mars and the asteroid belt, and a few scattered populations make due on the moons of planets further out. There is, however, no faster-than-light travel, no contact with any solar system beyond our own, no sentient AIs, and no aliens. A major theme of the book is the culture clash between those who live on Earth or Mars – the superpowers of this future – and those who live in the Belt, where mining is the preeminent economy and life is the hardscrabble sort where even water and oxygen have to be imported, never mind concepts like justice and equality. Different characters move from one place to the other or switch allegiances, but their origins are as baked in as we would regard ethnicity or nationality. As one character puts it, "A childhood spent in gravity shaped the way he saw things forever." Corey (who is actually two separate dudes writing under a penname) does a wonderful job of fleshing out the background worldbuilding. I loved references to fungal-culture whiskey, Bhangra as the default elevator muzak, hand gestures exaggerated to be seen through a spacesuit, and largely unintelligible localized slang (“Bomie vacuate like losing air,” the girl said with a chuckle. “Bang-head hops, kennis tu?” / “Ken,” Miller said. /“Now, all new bladeboys. Overhead. I’m out.”). It feels like a more detailed world than a lot of sci-fi does. Which is good, because the characters are not all that compelling. The two POVs are Jim Holden and Detective Miller. Holden is the second-in-command on an unimportant spaceship that works as a freight hauler, moving ice back and forth between the Belt and Saturn. Things change dramatically when a mysterious someone attacks their ship and kills everyone except for Holden and a few others, and he finds himself centrally involved in the runup to war. He has the most generic action-movie-hero personality I can imagine, with no discernable characteristics except 'idealistic' (and I really only know that because other people keep telling him he is), kinda nervous about being suddenly thrust into command but doing a good job, a womanizer (but see, it's okay because he just keeps genuinely falling in love with so many women!), and earnest. He's fine. He's not even objectionable, just incredibly boring. He comes with a crew of entirely indistinguishable followers that I couldn't keep straight, but that's all right because most of them get killed off so I no longer had to try to remember who was who. He also develops a romance that is 100% unbelievable, but I suppose that's what action-movie-heroes do, so who's even surprised. Miller is a detective on Ceres, the largest city in the Belt, who's been hired by a rich family to track down their anarchist, slumming daughter. Miller is an incredibly cliche noir protagonist - alcoholic, divorced, not as good as he used to be, cynical, a little bit corrupt but underneath it all he still remembers his good intentions – but at least that means he has more of a personality than Jim, even if it's a personality you've seen a thousand times before. On the other hand, Miller becomes obsessed with this dead/missing girl in a way that is painfully stereotypical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Two things kept this from ruining Leviathan Wakes for me. One, Miller is at least somewhat self-aware about it: This was why he had searched for her. Julie had become the part of him that was capable of human feeling. The symbol of what he could have been if he hadn’t been this. There was no reason to think his imagined Julie had anything in common with the real woman. Meeting her would have been a disappointment for them both. And two, there's a twist near the end that allows Julie to finally have her own voice in the text, and not exist solely as Miller's imagined dependance on her. It takes almost half the book for Miller and Holden to finally cross paths, at which point the missing-girl mystery and the war plot combine and take a twist for a direction I DID NOT SEE COMING. I am ambivalent on whether to spoil this; on the one hand, I read it unprepared and it was incredibly awesome to experience it that way. On the other hand, I suspect this is information that will be a determining factor for many people on whether they want to read it or not. So: halfway through, Leviathan Wakes takes a wild jump and becomes about a zombie outbreak. I would not have previously thought that 'space opera' and 'zombie apocalypse' are two genres that should be combined, but the tension and excitement skyrocket once the book takes this turn, transforming it from average quality to 'I CANNOT STOP READING, MUST FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT'. So, good choice! The sequence with Miller and Holden trapped on a small space station trying to sneak their way past zombie hordes is one of the most thrilling I've read in ages. Leviathan Wakes is the first book in a series (apparently it was originally supposed to be a trilogy, but there's currently eight books out with at least one more planned, along with a batch of short stories) and has also become a show on the Syfy network that I haven't seen. I feel like I've spent a lot of this review complaining, but honestly I mostly enjoyed the book and am planning to read the sequels. The fact that people seem to like the characters from future books more than these ones certainly doesn't hurt! Pig/Pork: Archaeology, Zoology and Edibility by Pia Spry-Marques. A nonfiction book about everything remotely related to the farming and eating of pigs. I expected from the subtitle and the author's personal background that archaeology would be the main focus, but it turns out that's really only the first two chapters, which cover the Paleolithic hunting of wild boar and the original domestication of pigs. The other chapters turn to topics as diverse as experiments on feeding farmed pigs leftovers from restaurants, the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, a special Spanish ham called ibérico de bellota which can only be fed acorns, genetically modifiying pigs so their manure would contain less phosporus, sunburn in pigs, minature pet pigs, organ donation between humans and pigs, the terrifying tapeworms to be acquired from eating raw pork, why pork is a 'white' meat, how to make sausages, theories on why pork is neither halal nor kosher, the use of an enzyme from pig pancreases in wine production, EU food-safety regulations on traditional pork dishes, Cuba's 'Bay of Pigs', the Pig War between the US and Canada in 1859, and Oliver Cromwell's favorite pig breed. Basically if it has the remotest connection to the title, Spry-Marques has included it. She even includes recipes for each chapter, though some of them are clearly more for amusement than actual consumption – I can't imagine anyone having just finished a chapter on how eating raw pork will give you cysts in your brain is eager to try figatellu, a type of uncooked sausage from France. And it would take a braver foodie than me to taste "Asian-inspired pork uterus with green onion and ginger". In fact, as is probably not surprising for any book which touches on factory farming however briefly, you will probably come away not wanting to eat pork at all for a while. Spry-Marques's writing is breezy and conversational, which kept me turning the pages even when the structure was a bit scattered. I wish it were more focused, but it's a great book for anyone who enjoys popular science, history, or food writing. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope. A YA fantasy novel with some unusual elements. Rather than being set in vaguely medieval England or a dystopian sci-fi future, we're in a country where the technology seems to be around 1900: cars and electric lights exist, but they're restricted to rich cities, and someone coming from rural poverty might well have never seen either. Magic exists, but comes from one's heritage; you're either born with it or not. In Elsira, where our story is set, it's rare to the point of nonexistence. Our heroine Jasminda, however, does have magic, due to her father having been a refugee from the neighboring country of Lagrimar, where magic is common. Elsira and Lagrimar have been constantly at war for hundreds of years, but are separated by a magical Barrier which allows no one to pass through, except on rare occasions when a temporary breach happens and violence erupts. Elsirans are light-skinned and Lagrimari are dark-skinned, so Jasminda has dealt with fairly severe racism throughout her life. The story starts when Jasminda runs across Jack, a Elsiran soldier just back from spying in Lagrimar who has super important information that must get back to the capital as soon as possible; unfortunately Jack has just been shot and is closely pursued by a troop of Lagrimari soldiers. Jasminda and Jack team up, fall in love, and try to prevent the coming outbreak of war. The most revealing thing I can say about Song of Blood & Stone is that it's very, very YA. (As you could probably guess, what with its title that fits exactly into the pattern of the 'YA title' meme currently going around tumblr.) Almost everything that happens is easily predictable from the back cover (Jack's long-withheld backstory is clearly supposed to be a shocking twist, but it's obvious from the moment he appears), the prose is mediocre but fine, good and bad guys are clearly signalled, the real world parallels (racism, treatment of refugees, domestic abuse) are good-hearted but extremely Social Justice 101. On the plus side, the beginning was the worst part and it got better and better as it went along; several developments near the very end were so interesting that I'm tempted to read the sequel, despite my initial boredom. Overall it's not a bad book, but I'd only recommend it to people who are extremely affectionate of the most repetitive tropes of the YA genre. I read this as an ARC from a GoodReads giveaway.

[DW link for easier commenting]

[you-have-startled-the-witch]

hey guys, it has been forever since i sat down and just wrote a straight-up story, but i got some inspiration (partly from casey’s laser revolver info, partly from thinking about the history of bananas, and partly from listening to “ain’t no rest for the wicked”) so here’s the first part of a space western thing. i’ll write more eventually, and i know i’m a little out of practice, but i hope you like it!

           “Remind me again why we’re landing on Ambrose? From everything I’ve heard, nothing’s here but a failed colony, now a deserted one. Don’t think we’re going to find the resources we need to refuel there.”

           “There’s a reason, um…” Most people would never quite get used to hearing an AI stammer, or pause to think. But if most people had gone through what Sorin did, they’d have much worse problems on their hands than a muddled mind, if they even had a mind left. Besides, Sorin’s silicon brain, at any capacity, is leagues better than mine. Or a human’s.

           “The Ambrose settlement was a privately funded endeavor. But records are tight about just where that funding came from, or why it was attempted to begin with. However, I was able to find details on the company that produced the defense ships that used to guard this colony.”

           “And?” I think to myself, were they using the defense ships to keep people out, or to keep them in?

           “All of them were made by Septacorp. Which means they must have had at least something to do with this project.” That’s apparently the same company who built the Oracle, the ship I woke up on without knowing why, the ship my AI companion and I now command. People joke that the name comes from the fact that they’ve got their hands in all seven sectors of settled space, which I don’t doubt. Some say they’ve got more power than the Coalition itself, and judging by the total lack of lawlessness out here, I don’t doubt that either. “It’s the best lead I’ve been able to find in a while. I know it isn’t much to go on, but, um, it’s worth investigating.”

           “Checking it out couldn’t hurt.” I steal a glance out the bridge’s main viewport at the planet below us. Doesn’t look like an optimal, or even a plausible location for a civilian colony. There are few weak patches of what can barely be called green, encrusted among vast, flat swaths of reddish brown. There’s a sea or two, but the water looks murky, almost purple, and cloud cover is scarce and wispy, dissipating on the coasts. Even with wells, with desalination technology, with hydroponics, a settlement here would be doomed from the start. “And, if it does hurt, we can get the hell off.”

           Sorin brings the ship towards one of the “green” patches near Ambrose’s northern side. At least whoever had this place built wasn’t dumb enough to stick it on the equator. I catch a bird’s-eye glimpse of the rounded buildings as we touch down in the ruins of a farm – they were probably white at one point; now they’ve got a brown matte to them, piles of dust leaning against the crumbling walls. At first glance, it looks like the person who funded this wreck went all-out. There are fields of grass, no doubt artificial, large centers that probably housed plenty of people and entertainment, streets arranged in a neat grid layout. But judging by the level of deterioration that’s set in only a few years after the colony was abandoned, it was never built to last.

           “Listen to this,” Sorin announces, “the oxygen level out there is seventeen percent. What were they thinking? Humans need at least twenty, and a quick scan of the soil composition tells me there is nowhere near enough decayed organic matter to support farms or orchards sufficient to improve those conditions.”

           That gives a whole other side to “never built to last.”

           “There’s something really suspicious going on here. I think you picked us a good lead, Sorin.” I snap my laser revolver to my side and slip my helmet on – it’s not that I need protection from the weak atmosphere; I can function just fine in fifteen percent oxygen, and twelve won’t kill me (the cold void of space, however, will, if given enough time. I’ve tried). But I do need a stable line of communication with the Oracle. It’s not as though I have the technology on hand to take Sorin with me, or that Sorin would want to leave, I just have to work on faith that no one will drop by while I’m away. It’s worked so far, although I’m always a little worried our luck is reaching its end.

           “Do you know what you’re looking for?” Sorin asks, through my radio.

           “Evidence of Septacorp ships. Or, evidence of whatever the hell was wrong with this colony. Maybe a nice ice cream sundae, if I can find one.”

           “You’ve never had an ice cream sundae.”

           “Then, let’s hope I know one when I see it.” I head down to the lowest deck, where the hangar door is already open for me. The Oracle isn’t a big ship, but it does host a couple smaller gunships, most of which I’ve gotten blown to pieces in dogfights that got too hot. Sorin always says I should probably leave the piloting to the AI.

           Ambrose’s surface is hot, even in the north. I’ve heard of towns built on good old Earth in the middle of scorching deserts, or atop mountains stretching out of the atmosphere. But Earth, even now, has rivers they can dam, glaciers and massive freshwater lakes, and even the people who settled mountain peaks had enough oxygen to be able to adjust. This colony seems to have built by someone who was extremely cocky or extremely stupid; knowing Septacorp to be neither, I think there has to be an ulterior motive.

           I set off toward the farm house near where we landed, and I see movement near the entrance. Some sort of jackals – leathery skin, long snouts, four legs apiece – are looking for a way in. I fire my gun into the air and they scatter, politely leaving the door cracked for me.

           “Is everything okay?” comes Sorin’s voice over the radio. “I heard a shot. Are you getting into trouble already?”

           “Just scaring off some scavengers,” I say, “but even so, I still don’t think this breaks my record of starting a fight ten seconds after stepping off the ship.” We’d docked on a beat-up space station that was nothing but trouble, looking for an ex-scientist turned “salesman” who supposedly knew about some of the tech aboard the Oracle, even sold things like it. But we landed in the territory of one of the station’s more powerful gangs, and didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome. The so-called scientist we were searching for turned out to be nothing more than an exceptional con man, and all we left with was a lovely parting gift of several minor hull breaches.

           “I’ll be sure to keep counting,” Sorin says.

           The second I step into the house, I notice a faint but horrific smell. Weapon still drawn, I do a quick scan of the room. Have I really found someone’s body already? But no, the only thing here is a pile of vegetables, rotting unnaturally slowly on the kitchen counter. So much for farm fresh.

           I continue through the one-story building. Nothing exceptional – there’s clearly still furniture and personal possessions here, but not to the extent of, say, unfinished meals on the kitchen table, or a radio that’s still on. And no bodies. I can’t tell if that’s reassuring or more concerning.

           In the front yard, I think I’m leaning towards the latter. Three vaguely rectangular spots of disheveled dirt, all but one unmarked, mar the otherwise flat ground. Another shallow grave, shovel speared into the soil at its head, lies vacant, but it does reveal that the topsoil here only goes down a foot or so before a layer of dust. Whoever was supposed to occupy this grave is nowhere to be found, but a dusty concrete road leading towards the heart of town might show me.

           “This still looks like a crappy place for a farm, or for any civilization,” I update Sorin, starting down the road. It’s lined with more empty houses, a few with caved-in roofs, being eaten by dust. Skimming the yards, I find that most people here seemed to have subtler tastes than “graves as lawn ornament,” but I still find several other spots where people have been buried. They don’t look hasty, either, although none of the markers have names on them. A couple are numbered, and I feel sick to my stomach for a moment, reminded of how I woke up to hundreds of numbered dead, how I should have been among them, how I was a number too, once.

But, I tell myself, it’s not the same. It could have something to do with where I came from, but there’s no proof yet.

Walking into what was once the more populated area of the colony, I see with abject horror why people were burying bodies in their yards and not a municipal cemetery. One of the bigger buildings, all its windows smashed, has a red cross painted haphazardly above the front entrance. Framing the heavy doors is a pile of corpses.

I stagger backwards. Looking around, I can see now, in between houses with boarded-up windows, are smaller heaps. Some look as if someone attempted to burn them, only to give up when the flame undoubtedly didn’t spread. All of them are disturbingly intact, despite having presumably been here for years. Little oxygen means little decay besides from wind and dust.

“Oh my god…”

“What did you find?” Sorin asks with a hint of rising panic.

I attempt to compose myself. “I, uh, I don’t think this colony is quite… abandoned.”

“What do you mean? Did you find someone?”

“I think I found everyone. But they’re not going to be giving us information on this place any time soon.” I swallow hard. “They’re dead.”

“What? What happened to them?!”

“Well… I’m gonna guess they didn’t drown.”

Cautiously, I step closer to one of the piles in front of the makeshift clinic. None of these people have visible wounds. So, disease? I turn one over with my boot. It’s a young man – delicate features, pale red hair, a thin face. He doesn’t look like a plague victim. Still, I’m thankful I wore my helmet. I examine another of the bodies, and what I see almost shocks me more than finding them in the first place. Frantically I turn over another, and another, and another.

Every single one of them has an identical face.

“Sorin, there’s something very, very wrong going on here. Do you have any other information on the Ambrose colony?”

“Not much, just a second… There seems to be a serious lack of records pertaining to this place. I can tell you that most of the Septacorp ships tasked with guarding this colony left after some time. Or, they dropped off the map entirely. The last one vanished shortly before the people here did, and a bit of digging tells me that part was due to a failure in the water supply system.”

“Did that ‘failure’ happen to involve antimic, by any chance?”

“No, why? Did, oh my god, did you find clones here?”

‘Antimic’ is a nasty portmanteau of ‘anti’ and ‘mimic,’ and the concept itself is even worse, usually talked about in only the darkest of backwater labs and crime rings. The idea is, if the right person gets their hands on a clone’s (or a person’s) genetic information, they can tailor a disease specifically to affect anyone with that exact gene structure. In cases like this, it can be used to wipe out an entire population, swiftly and with no outside casualties. We’re on the edges of settled space. If the Coalition can’t see genocide happening, it can’t do anything about it, right?

“A lot of them. What I don’t understand is, why populate a colony with nothing but clones? And, if they aren’t doing anything here, why kill all of them?”

“I don’t know, but if you can bring me a sample of one of them, I can try to pick apart that disease, and maybe see if there have been any other instances of it – “

“Hold that thought, Sorin.” There’s something moving near one of the houses, across an intersection. Those animals again? I focus, and realize it’s a person, wrapped in a heavy coat and hood, staring straight at me.

Instinctively, I put a hand to the pistol at my side, and the figure bolts. I start after them, calling, “Just wait! I don’t want to hurt you, I want to know what’s going on!” They weave between buildings, kicking up clouds of dust and knocking over metal panels, heading for the outskirts of the colony.

We round a particularly tall building, and I’m met with a sudden view of the red horizon, brackish clouds bleeding somewhere in the distance, no more buildings in sight except for – the downed remains of a starship.

I stop to catch my breath as the person slips inside (noting that they seem to be having even less trouble than I do exerting themselves in this atmosphere), and get a good view of the ship. It doesn’t look like it landed gently, that’s for certain, but it also didn’t seem to be a violent crash. There’s not much of a crater – a few scorch marks on the ship’s hull, sure, and it’s sort of lopsided, but nothing vital looks broken.

I follow the figure in through the loading bay, and shoot an update to Sorin: “Hey? I found someone. Alive. They’re holed up in an old ship, I think it’s Septacorp. I’m going to ask them what they know – “ The sound of a gun cocking pulls me from what I’m saying, and static fills my ears.

“You aren’t going to get a message through to your shipmates. I equipped this place with electromagnetic shielding.” The person has his hood down now, and I realize he’s got the same face as the bodies out there. Must have been trying to protect himself from the antimic.

“And what’s a nice guy like you doing in a dump like this?” Maybe I can get him to lower his guard and talk to me.

He ignores it. “Why did you land here?”

“Doing some sight-seeing. Would you mind putting the gun down?”

“No one lands here. No one is alive here.”

“Look. I know that, I just found that out. But if you’ll help me understand why, maybe I can help you.”

“You can’t help this colony. Why are you here?”

God dammit. Fine. “Okay. Fine. I’m not a tourist. But I know that you’re not, either. You’re one of them, out there. You had to watch them all die around you, with no idea why or who was doing it, or where it even came from. No idea why you got to – why you had to be the one to live.” I take a deep breath. “You’re like me. A clone.”

“I know that, GT-1421.” I flinch when he calls me that, barely stopping to wonder how he knows that ‘name,’ the one I erased a long time ago, and his grip on the gun tightens.

“Then do you know that I want to help you? I want to figure out where we’re from. I want to know who did this to the Ambrose colony. If you’ll tell me what you know, maybe we can stop them.”

“I know. I know. I know… that we can’t.” All of a sudden, he turns the pistol towards his own temple. “Go to Phaeton’s Jewel.” As I rush towards him frantically, he pulls the trigger; I only barely stop him from hitting the ground.

I could have helped him.

I bury him in the empty grave near the first house I explored, and Sorin and I leave Ambrose to its dust.

[fanfoolishness]

Mass Effect: Andromeda - my review

Well it only took me about 75 hours, but I got there. Full spoilers.

Overall, I enjoyed it.  However, it never quite suckerpunched me the way the previous trilogy did.  It was fun and interesting, but overall, something didn’t quite click.  I think if I had to boil it down to a single letter, I’d go with B.  But it’s easier for me to review individual components than it is to review the game as a whole, so here we go:

Characters

One of the most important parts of any ME games, there were times I loved individual characters, and yet times I was bored or unimpressed with them.  With all the talk about tons of dialogue I thought there’d be, you know, tons of dialogue; but when you’ve only completed 75% of the game I’d expect there to still be new dialogue with your squaddies on ship, but I haven’t had any new conversations with anyone for about 20 hours.  Banter in the Nomad still works, thankfully, but that’s about it.  

I liked almost all of my squaddies, but to varying degrees.  Even Cora I liked when she wasn’t going on about being a wannabe asari; when she focused her conversations on the future or gardening or gaining insight on herself then I quite liked her.  Drack was tough; I liked his general vibe, but he was also extremely Wrexlike, which was disappointing.  I’d rather he have been fully his own character.  I really liked getting to know some of the krogan on Elaaden who were gardeners, though.

Liam’s passion was really refreshing, not to mention his easygoing humor.  Vetra was sweet and alternately a total badass and a big cream puff (remind you of any other turians you know)?  I loved how unconventional Peebee was, a much more tomboyish asari than we’re used to seeing.  Jaal was hard for me to get used to at first, given he was so prickly initially, but he was one of my favorites by the end.

Kallo was my favorite shipmate.  His gossip about the rest of the crew is great.  I enjoyed my philosophical debates with Suvi and the one time I flirted with her she was adorable.  Lexi was cool and professional and I would have liked to see more of her struggles as a doctor, being one myself.  Gil was the only person I just didn’t click with at all.  He struck me as arrogant and while he was clearly a victim of bad/bizarre/LGBT-clueless writing, if he’d been a real person settling down with a straight woman I’d have had a lot more to say than “oh, do you think you’re ready for that?”

Writing

Sadly, the reviews about poor writing weren’t out of left field.  Most of the time I didn’t notice any problems, but I also didn’t notice much in the way of standout jokes or heartbreaking moments.  The general plot… so why, again, does the Archon carry such a hateon for everyone else?  There were a lot of threads I wanted to see followed up but never went anywhere:

The kett ascendency center: we saw kett being trained and taught, datapads giving hints to their actual culture, and then never saw any of that again except for one cutscene where the Archon’s… advisor? tells him the council or whatever thinks he’s making a mistake.  No further information on kett culture.  Were they another created race made by the Jardaan?  Did they rebel?  Did they work with someone who created the Scourge back in the day?  Nobody knows!

SAM: I was really hoping that SAM would be able to fight back against the Archon somewhat and make it clear he wasn’t just a Remnant-hacking program, but his own person or self.  They completely missed that opportunity.  They still could have had the Archon take control but it would have been really powerful to see SAM verbally defying him.

Angaran creation and exaltation: they seem to be taking this really, really well.  No riots?  No mass depression?  Just a couple forums on Aya. Plus with that business about reincarnation being partially possible for them, none of their scientists seemed to connect that to being made... could have been an interesting angle.

Drack’s quest: for some reason there were so many damn pieces to his quest in particular that I utterly forgot what I was doing not once but several times, as there were so many planets it was spread out over and it took me a long time to even reach Elaaden.  Not so much a thread that didn’t get followed up on, but one I couldn’t keep the thread on.

Standout Quests

That said, there were some moments that were genuinely great.

The first steps on any new world

Running from the first purification field

Going onto the shadowed Nexus for the first time and seeing TALL turians and salarians!  and learning things had gone so wrong

Every ark mission – spooky, sad (ahhh turians no), scary!  They were each immensely satisfying.

The loyalty missions!  Liam’s was damn hilarious, Vetra’s showed her vulnerable side, Peebee’s let us jump around in lava and put down her abusive ex-girlfriend (come on, Peebee, THAT’S why I shot her – she had no qualms stalking and trying to kill you!!! she was an abuser through and through  and couldn’t let you go!), Drack’s was great mostly for meeting young Vorn and his smelly sweet potato, Cora’s had the urgency of saving the asari ark, and Jaal’s really got me going when I thought his sister had killed his brother.

The post-loyalty mission wrap-ups: Jaal’s was the best and most tender, but I also loved the bar fight with Drack and planting flowers with Cora.

All main story quests were generally exhilarating or surprising.  When the Archon hit my Ryder with the headache to end all headaches and went after my twin I was yelling at the screen – always a good sign of how engaged I am.

The anti-AI hackers – definitely felt like a classic ME quest and I wanted to help Alain so badly.  Fuck off, Overlord.

Saving the yevara from poachers!  Those things are beautiful.  I think.

Catching a new space hamster

MOVIE NIGHT, it ended up being totally worth all the obnoxious fetch quests that preceded it

The Nexus bad guy being named WILLIAM SPENDER (seriously they had to have been X-Files fans)

THE QUARIANS ARE COMING SOON PLZ 

Gameplay

Loved: JUMPJET, Nomad, the versatility of different profiles and specializations, Sidewinder pistol, Falcon grenade launcher, and of course my beloved Black Widow; exploring different planets; BANTER IN THE NOMAD

Hated: too… many… fetch quests………. drowning….

Romance

Definitely disappointing.  I feel like I got 5-7 flirts with Vetra, then after her loyalty quest she asked “is this real?” and I’m like “…is WHAT real, it’s not like we’ve started dating or anything!” but we kissed and I was like “Oh yay, romance is triggered!”  Well, I had a grand total of 1 squadmate say anything about it (Drack), a few extra lines of dialogue, and 2 additional cut scenes with 0 naked turians.  I didn’t even get a greeting that changed in the Tempest, she called me Sara on Aya (my Ryder’s name is Zelda), and there are no “let’s go make out” dialogue options.  I couldn’t even talk to Sid anymore after the loyalty quest so didn’t get any teasing or additional dialogue there.

If I do another playthrough I’ll try Jaal and see how it goes, but my FEELS levels are definitely lower than with other Bioware games.

Multiplayer

Yeah, this is actually fun.  I am having a blast playing as a krogan.  I just unlocked an angaran so I might level her up over the next couple weeks too.

Overall

Did I like this game?  Yes, yes I did.

Did I LOVE AND ADORE this game?  No, not quite.  Close – but not quite.

[firehawk12]

Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that came out of nowhere for me. Guerilla Games’ track record is a bit suspect at best, and the fact that Killzone Shadow Fall was, to be kind, a forgettable experience so there wasn’t really any reason to have any expectations for their latest offering.

Yet somehow, despite the complete shift in genre, Guerilla has managed to deliver a game that is fun to play and features an engaging world to contextualize that play. The core mechanic in the game, fighting against the robotic creatures in the game, fulfills the promise of an open-world combat system. As Aloy, you have many options at your disposal to engage with these monsters. You might stalk them in the grass and strike from behind, or you might choose to set up various traps along their patrol paths, or perhaps you might go in guns blazing (or bows blazing) and shower them with arrows.

The actual mission design leaves a lot to be desired — the majority of the missions in the game have the same loop: find a quest giver, go to a waypoint on the map, follow a glowing purple trail, fight some enemy, return home to collect your reward — but the combat more than makes up for the cliched gameplay loop.

What surprised me the most is that the game itself is built in a way that should offend me, in the same way that Ready Player One and the news of a Matrix reboot lead me to believe that popular culture is dying a slow death, regurgitating both the gameplay mechanics and science fiction tropes that can be found in many other properties.

As a game, it obviously draws inspiration from the many Ubisoft games that have driven the open world formula to the ground, with towers (of a sort) to climb and a map riddled with icons displaying a myriad of collectables. As a fictional world, the future depicted in Horizon is a pastiche of science fiction ideas pulled from a myriad of sources — Earth is doomed because Ted Faro, a billionaire with an overinflated sense of self-importance, designed military robots that consumed organic matter for fuel, thus dooming all of humanity. Realizing that there was no way to stop the robot apocalypse, humanity, led by Elisabet Sobeck, developed a plan that would save life on Earth — wait for the machines to wipe out all life on the planet, then “reboot” everything by reintroducing humanity once the machines have died off and the planet is safe. There’s even a ship full of embryos being sent into deep space as a backup plan that you can read about in the audio logs, so you can check that box too.

But that’s fine. Sure, the game feels like Assassin’s Creed with Terminator slapped on top of it, but it’s a text that proves that something really can be greater than the sum of its parts. The game unapologetically draws inspiration from a variety of video games and science fiction texts, but is never bogged down by its source material. It’s neither referential nor reverential to the material that it is drawing from, so you never feel taken out of the text because a writer/designer wants to show you how clever they are by trying to point out something you should immediately recognize. No one says something stupid like “Come with me if you want to live” just because Horizon is a game about a robot uprising.

Having played a bit of Ghost Recon Wildlands, a game that faithfully follows the Ubisoft open-world formula, you can immediately see the difference between a group of designers who care about creating a compelling lore for their world and a group where the lore is essentially just window dressing for the gameplay loop. Even after a week finishing Horizon, I still find myself speculating and thinking about the “post” post-apocalyptic world that Guerrilla has created.

There is one criticism I have with the game that I wanted to talk about. For the most part, I’m content with how the story and lore is delivered to the player. There’s nothing really unique here in terms of how the narrative is presented to the player — you have standard cinematic cutscenes, audio logs, text logs, “in game” cutscenes (which are essentially audio logs with character models that you can look at), and conversations with NPCs. There’s a token attempt to give the player some choice by allowing Aloy to choose how to respond to certain situations (although I can’t remember the in-game terms, essentially she can be sympathetic, cruel, or thoughtful), but these decisions are essentially inconsequential.

I suppose that’s fine. I understand that most of the resources are going to be devoted to creating an open world that is worth exploring since that’s going to be how you spend most of your time with the game (and it’s clear that the designers are enamored with their work because they included a “photo mode” for you to take screenshots and show off their work for them), but I can’t help but be somewhat disappointed by how the story is delivered.

In particular, the NPC conversation system is ripped straight out of a BioWare game… from 10 years ago. Here’s how a typical conversation plays out in the game:

Forgiving the fact that the facial animation feels off, particularly Aloy’s smile at the end, doesn’t this conversation feel very familiar if you’ve played any BioWare game made in the last 15 years or so? It’s two people standing, always facing each other, while the camera simply cuts between the two of them. Shot/reverse-shot, over and over again. Every single conversation looks exactly the same, even important ones where some major plot point is being revealed to Aloy/the player.

Even the first Mass Effect tried to break up its conversations with some more interesting camera angles:

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in believing that a game released in 2017 should at least have better presentation than a game released in 2007. Particularly if I’m forgiving the developers for not really introducing any ludic storytelling moments in their game at all.

I wanted to illustrate how distracting this presentational style can be with an explicit example, so I’ll just say now that the rest of this discussion will contain spoilers for the end of the game.

At the beginning of the game, you start off playing as a younger version of Aloy who is being trained by Rost, her adoptive father figure, in the ways of the Nora. Through a various set of circumstances, Rost eventually sacrifices his life to save yours, fulfilling his duty as a father-figure who must die in order to motivate the main character (as I said, the game is not really original, but in this context it sells the story).

One of the bigger mysteries in the game is Rost’s relationship with Aloy — why was Rost ostracized from his society? Why does he care so much about Aloy?His character also introduces questions about Aloy’s character as well — who are Aloy’s parents? These questions help make the quest to save the world from another robot apocalypse much more interesting, because suddenly Aloy has personal stakes in the quest which makes her immediately relatable to the player. The game is as much about discovering the truth about Aloy’s “family” as it is about trying to stop the rogue AI Hades and his plans to consume the world.

You have an engaging world that you want to explore and an interesting main character that you are learning about as you play the game. You and Aloy learn her identity at the same time (although the game gives you ample opportunity to guess at her true identity throughout the game), and the revelation that Aloy is a clone of the original Elisabet Sobeck, the woman who tried to save humanity during the original apocalypse, lets you connect to both Aloy’s devastating realization that she was bred for a specific purpose and to the overall narrative of the game.

That’s all great, and it pays off in a wonderfully emotional moment for Aloy at the end of the game. Yes, she never had parents, but she had a father-figure who taught her the skills to survive in the new world and a mother-figure who guided her on her journey to save humanity.

But let’s look at how the game presents this characterization to the player. Here’s how Aloy’s relationship with Rost culminates in the game:

After his noble sacrifice, he is eventually buried next to his home, and Aloy can visit his grave to update him on her journey. Speaking to a loved one’s grave is a ritual that everyone can relate to , and we’re meant to feel for Aloy’s loss by getting a glimpse at how much she still cares for him. Except this sentiment is ruined by the game’s archaic conversation system. It’s clear that the game is treating Rost’s grave as a second “character” in this conversation, and because of how limited the conversation engine seems to be, the only thing the developers were able to show is the back of Aloy’s head while she speaks to a badly framed shot of the grave. We don’t even get a cut to a reverse-shot of Aloy speaking so that we might be able to see the emotion on her face as she pours her heart out to her father. The best they can do is switch to a medium shot so that the visuals aren’t entirely static, but it’s hard not to see the limitations of the game engine. Certainly it robs the moment of its emotional impact because you can’t help but notice the static nature of the scene.

Now let’s take a look at how they present Aloy’s search for her “mother’s” grave:

The difference is night at day. Yes, it’s a cutscene, and so they have a lot more control over what they can show. It’s much more crafted, and honestly, more cinematic than the scene where she speaks to Rost. We get shots of both Elisabet’s body and Aloy’s reaction to finding her mother. We even get the crane shot at the end to show us not only that Aloy has discovered who she is, but that both Elisabet and Aloy have managed to save humanity from destruction.

Now, do I wish there were more cutscenes in the game? Of course not. The last thing I want is another Uncharted where the game’s story is conveyed through unskippable non-interactive cinematics. But they could have done something to at the very least spice up the NPC conversation system to do more than just show the two characters talking to each other. There’s no reason why Aloy couldn’t have been talking to Rost’s grave while clearing some brush away from the stones, or even sitting down next to it while facing the camera so that we could see her character emote. The same goes for every single conversation that you have in the game, from the relatively minor ones like the one above with Talanah, to the major ones where you speak with Sylens about the true nature of the Zero Dawn project.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that, outside of its combat mechanics, doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. It’s an experience that feels very familiar, both in terms of the gameplay loop and in terms of the story it conveys. But if you’re willing to forgive the well-worn nature of the game, and in my case, the issues with how the game presents its story, then you’ll have one of the more fulfilling game experiences of the year.

[letsanalyze]

Let’s Analyze... Game Openings Pt. I

Those first few minutes, that opening cut-scene, the first steps through a tutorial. These formative moments are crucial not only for setting up a player to understand a game’s world, but setting them up to succeed and thrive in it. To set the tone for the journey ahead, many games opt to begin with a short cinematic, openings.

Be they conversations, raps, or more often stories being told to the player diegetically through the world’s characters, openings can serve as a powerful way to introduce players to a game’s foreign universe. In stories being told about realms and galaxies distant from our own, these introductions are critical to grasping some sense of lore. They introduce us to only the most important terms and factions and put them all in a broad vague context for the player to later dive into. It is these opening that we’ll be investigating with particular attention to how much a game’s intro is able to educate, excite and enchant the player in as little time and as diegetically as possible.

To do this we’ll be breaking up these openings into a few categories:Storybook Style, in which a character in the world’s lore is recounting the world’s lore. Omnipotent Narrator, a similar method but less diegetic, with the narrator not apparently being a character in the game’s world, and possessing more knowledge than any one character might be able to. And finally Vignettes, in which a small scene is played to adjust players to the world without explicitly explaining any kind of lore. Obviously these categories are neither static nor all-encompassing, but it’s important to see how each method might be used effectively and what can be drawn from the strengths of each. For instance the Omnipotent Narrator tends to be the most information dense, while the Vignette is arguably the most immersive, and the Storybook Style is a kind of marriage of the two. For what it’s worth no particular method is truly better than the other, but each can play their strengths to different kinds of narratives.

We’ll also be breaking down our investigations by series and methods that are similar, finally concluding with some of my personal favorites which I find to be particularly effective blends. It’s important to remember I’ll be glossing over many of these pieces for the sake of time, as well as not strictly limiting this discussion to just the game’s opening (As will be the case with Final Fantasy VII as well as Bioshock). With that in mind let’s get started!

Vignettes

Vignettes can be strong thematic pieces, that help set the tone for the rest of the game. They give the player a broad sense of what their world is like. Is the world hostile or peaceful? Will the player feel surrounded or isolated? What’s the score like? And what themes will the player be expecting to encounter? An effective vignette also lets the players see new and unfamiliar words in context, hear personal thoughts from important characters and possibly get a taste for game-play.

Let’s begin by talking about the opening to Blizzard’s wildly popular space opera: StarCraft (1998) linked above. The vignette clearly establishes the Terran’s Americana sensibilities with the (presumably) diegetic track playing in the background of the scrappers’ clam. We see the ruin that war has brought to a cluster of space faring ships, and are introduced not first to soldiers, but the proverbial vultures picking their corpses clean. In a game ostensibly about war, it’s a grim opening full of death and the remnants of destruction only to be followed by more destruction as the once charming chatter of the scrappers turns to panicked screams. Yet these Americana tones help keep the game’s intro distinct against other dystopian grim-dark space operas. We’re introduced to the mercenary nature of the Terran, and the ruthless and powerful nature of the Protoss, all without expressly telling any of this to the player. It’s theming is also appropriate for a sprawling Space Opera full of betrayal, death and whole planets being taken as collateral damage. All of this in less than 3 minutes.

Yet perhaps this vignette’s strongest point is it’s music (as we in fact hear this opening before we see it). It’s a familiar hickish kind of tune set in an alien environment, only to be later replaced with a violent synth-heavy cacophony as the Protoss ship approaches. This further informs the player on the nature of each faction, through music alone. Going beyond the intro, the game’s score immediately dives into a full suite with synth, guitar, and operatic overtones, to set the mood for the game’s dense and evocative menu screen, and the grandiose story to come. This control over the score to tell a coherent story to the player is arguably one of the StarCraft series’ greatest strengths and honestly deserves an article of its own at some point. 

This intro is interesting to say the least. It comes from Bungie’s Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), and is somewhat of a mixed bag of effectiveness. Let’s start with just the opening 5 seconds where we’re treated to a beautiful shot of the two most important locations in the game: The UNSC Pillar of Autumn and the eponymous alien Halo. It’s a shot that marries a fairly standard (yet still quite well realized) visual of a human ship in space, with something wholly unfamiliar, alien and awe inspiring. 

Unfortunately the scene that follows is less interesting, and in many ways fails to capture the urgency of the situation. It features the quite calm Captain Keyes and the AI Cortana discussing if they got away from their enemy (which they quickly discover they did not) and how they had to make a ‘blind jump’ to get here. The scene is riddled with Sci-Fi jargon that isn’t difficult to understand, but certainly slows the scene down. That said this use of jargon can help acclimate the player to new terms and ideas, like the enemy being called the Covenant or the ship coming from a place called Reach, but terms like “a hole in subspace” serve only to make the scene more complex than it needs to be, and introduce the player to ultimately granular information (though the line itself, “no one could’ve missed the hole we tore in subspace” does help establish Cortana’s sassy nature).

Most importantly the scene feels like the aftermath of a small failed skirmish and and short breather, as opposed to the actuality of the situation: They’re fleeing a planet that has just been totally annihilated by their enemy and have just gotten one last gasp of air before discovering they’re surrounded. It’s the slow, calm, methodical pacing of this scene that does this greater context injustice. Is it atmospheric? Sure. Is it somewhat tone def to the shooter and segment that’s about to follow? Arguably, yes. 

We then cut to a much more urgent scene, of the UNSC soldiers preparing for the battle to come. While this sets a fantastic tone for the UNSC forces and serves as a charming intro to Sergeant Johnson (one of the game’s main characters), the pacing between scenes feels incredibly choppy. The way the scene pans on all of the brilliantly realized weapons of war the player will be fighting with helps build a visual lexicon of the UNSC for the player, but is ultimately undercut by the brooding scene preceding it. The tones of these two scenes, one of contemplating and subtle frustration, the other of bravery and daring, clash with each other in an intro that leaves the player with no distinct feeling about the game’s themes yet.

An interesting design choice, is that this second scene actually changes depending on which difficulty the player selected. The harder the difficulty the more visceral and violent the Sergeant's speech becomes, matching the increased carnage the player will need to face on higher difficulties (and essentially giving a more diegetic equivalent of the quirky difficulty sliders in old-school shooters like DOOM and Wolfenstein) 

That said, for an opening not much longer than StarCraft’s it feels remarkably long as a result of its density and the raw number of unexplained terms and characters that are thrown at the player. For a vignette meant to create a sense of urgency, the gameplay that follows (a brief diagnostics tutorial) seems like a distinct pace killer, after a cinematic already rife with tone issues.

An interesting phenomenon is what happens when this cinematic is taken in its greater context, or rather if this cinematic is taken less as an opening and more as a continuation from the events on Reach that preceded it. This slow brooding intro followed by a quick jolt to battle-stations feels more urgent and visceral, its choppiness and tone differences feel almost masterful, particularly if you’re coming to this game right after playing the much later realized Halo: Reach (2011). 

As far as strengths we might learn from this opening, the beginning 5 seconds certainly stand out, and provide evocative visual context for the entire game to follow. Additionally, it poses the question of whether a vignette should stick to a single strong tone, or perhaps intentionally muddy the water for the player. It’s arguable that this clash of tones in the intro is meant to show the UNSC as more than just gun-totting space marines, but also a calculating methodical group, and it does do a great job of setting up the characters of Captain Keyes and Seargant Johnson respectively (with Cortana getting more time to shine in a later cinematic). 

SquareSoft’s Final Fantasy VII (1997) may not be my favorite Final Fantasy, but it’s a classic for a reason, and I’d argue this opening is one of them. Not only does this set up the plot, theming, characters and important concepts before saying more than a single box of dialogue, it also carries an incredible amount of momentum that brings players straight to the game’s heart just moments after starting a new game.

We start with a calm long quiet panning view of the stars, that fades into a shot of (as-of-yet unnamed to the player) Materia, which is clearly magical and appears to be coming out of the ground. Additionally we’re shown Aerith, a main character and ancient descendant who is closely connected to the Materia in the game’s plot. Thus, 60 seconds in and the game has already given us some kind of context for magic, the cosmos/the stars, Aerith and an apparent connection between all three. Since these concepts are all major pillars of the game’s plot, visually establishing them early creates a base for the player when these concepts are later explicitly explained, and the details of their connections revealed.

Next we fade out as the music slowly builds, and we’re introduced to the dusky streets of Midgard and the game establishes what technology is present here, cars, street lights, etc. All the way until the music hits its climax, and the title drops to the background a foreboding city roaring with smoke. (Almost gives me Blade Runner vibes... Seriously if you haven’t seen the opening to that film go watch it- It’s so good I almost gave it a segment in this analysis)

No sooner does the player become accustomed to this vista than they are taken into a hectic train-station, where the player joins the terrorist group Avalanche as killing two guards at the station and rushing in to commence a bombing mission against Shinra. What follows is the players first steps into the game world, and an immediate encounter with enemies. No fade to black, no tutorial transition, just right into the game, with only so much as a single textbox indicating the player should follow, thus preserving the momentum and build-up of the opening.

It’s important to note that while this opening (much like Halo’s) features a peaceful mood followed by a frantic mood, Final Fantasy VII pulls this off in a far less choppy manner that also helps to emphasize the game’s themes. This is primarily done in the way the game carefully builds up it’s opening, starting in silence, then to the cosmos and magic, then to the city streets, and the roaring heights of midgard, and then as things begin to pick up, back to the streets bellow to the bombing mission (with the most clever cutting to its hissing wheels as they roll into the station). This builds up pace and momentum which the player then carries through the rest of the level, as well as drawing the contrasts between the peaceful cosmos and Materia, and the violent and cacophonous Shinra and Avalanche.

There’s also something to be said for this intro’s lack of any conventional tutorial, helping carry all this momentum and urgency further. The game not only expects you’ll know how to play it, but also expects you’ll know how to play it reasonably well, offering a solid boss fight at the end of this intro level (more on that in another article).

Before we move on to other methods, it’s worth mentioning the opening to Monolith Soft’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017) which serves to similarly build a visual lexicon for its strange and varied world, as well as give a fitting character intro to Rex and Gramps respectively. This intro does a fantastic job of capturing the exotic and wondrous nature of Xenoblade Chronicle 2′s world, as well as the quirky nature of Rex and Gramps respectively.

Another vignette worth mentioning is the multi-layered intro to Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008). Which serves up commercials, speeches and even eggs depending on how far you want to stretch this ‘intro’. MGS4 is such a complicated beast that it’s difficult to give it a proper dissection in this kind of rundown, however what we can briefly take away is this:

Introducing your player to a world via that world’s commercials and marketing can create a strong sense of continuity and immersion while still being highly informational. (This is especially in the case of settings that center heavily on the role of corporations in their world). Additionally solemn speeches about war and whether or not it changes never seems to get old... Speaking of which:

Omnipotent Narrator

The Omnipotent Narrator knows all there is in a given game world, and is there to directly address the player and orient them for what’s to come. They’re never featured in the game, nor is their apparent speech to the player ever explained, but rather it’s a moment where the player is kept relatively unimmersed, so that they can dive into the game ahead with full knowledge of what is happening.

The intros to Interplay, Black Isle Studios, Bethesda’s Fallout series have become iconic in their own right, but also serve as an incredible example of how this style of non-diegetic and fairly direct introduction, can still be incredibly effective (We’ll be talking generally about all of the intros here, minus the fourth one, as it is diegetic). 

A slide-show of gruesome images help build a wide scope of the destruction war has brought to the world, both past and present. It echoes methods of war story-telling that dates back to the 1800s and are still just as effective today in video games. It faces players with the grim harsh realities of violence, as they’re set up to explore a world devastated by its ultimate escalation. It disowns this violence as being no more than senseless brutality in the name of various causes, but also hopelessly concedes its inevitability. It’s a bleak opening to an even bleaker world, setting up a universal theme of violence and destruction throughout the series. Ron Pearlman’s gnarled voice does great justice to these dark speeches and war-torn environments, and the quiet ambient score only further sets the mood for the player.

These reflections on the past of war also helps put the fairly information heavy openings in greater context, making explanations about Ceasers’ Legions or Vaults seem like pieces in a greater history of violence and war (Rather than brief explanations of the lore to the player).Of note is how Fallout: New Vegas (2010) plays for the best of both worlds, by pairing an establishing vignette of the Strip with the classic iconic “War Never Changes” speech that follows.

Another interesting note is how these openings and MGS4′s set up their world with a single rule that governs the rest of the game’s feel. For Fallout, that rule is that “War never changes,” war is inevitable, eternal, immutable, and the player is just another harbinger of destruction no matter who they fight for. Metal Gear Solid 4 painfully reflects that “War has changed,” that war has simply become a bottled proxy of a proxy, running off the lives of soldiers to oil a machine that aims to keep the world under control, “Genetic control. Information control. Emotion control. Battlefiled control. Everything is monitored and kept under control.” These sweeping statements work particularly well in grimdark settings, where bleakness reigns. Even the game that spawned the word ‘grimdark’, Games Workshop’s tabletop skirmish game Warhammer 40,000, opens with its own sweeping statement, “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.”

Beyond Fallout these Ominpotent Narrator intros tend to be particularly popular in the early days of video games, during the late 80s and early 90s. It’s a method that’s useful for games that emphasize gameplay and environments to tell their stories over dialogue, and games whose stories are relatively simple or intentionally vague (or technologically limited). The popular term “20XX” from the time is a great example of this, keeping even the year of these events vague, and only giving the most basic context for the players actions.

That said, despite their simplicity many of these intros favor showing pictures of the game’s setting (much like Fallout) to further set the mood of the world for the player. Capcom’s Mega Man 2 (1988) and SEGA’s Streets of Rage (1991) both feature urban sprawls to accompany this text, building a futuristic setting. In Mega Man 2, the music builds to a climax exciting the player as they’re told of the background to their heroism to follow. By contrast Streets of Rage, builds a somber atmosphere with its music, breathing life into the solemn setting of a city brought to its knees by gang violence.

These types of openings can particularly play on the strengths of the player’s own imagination to fill in the blanks of the world’s details once given the most important bit of information. Fittingly later works like FromSoftware’s Dark Souls (2011) feature the Omnipotent Narrator for similar reasons, as it serves only to give a basis for a world meant for the player to unravel and imagine on their own. We’ll be diving into that series, the Storybook Style and some clever blends of these three methods in the next part!

[podmusical]

The Left Hand of Dankentness

Credits and Lyrics for Episode 9 of Our Dumb Universe

starring:

Announcer - James B Kennedy Feltina - Christina Pumariega Huphalumpagus - Rachel Flynn Beep - Kerry Ipema Sondra - Lauren Lim Jackson Dankent - Nathaniel Kent Valborg - Emily Gardner Xu Hall Pangla - Melissa Lusk Fuzzo - Jared Loftin Boop - Melissa Lusk Bloor - Carl Howell Null Ship - Jenni Putney Null Trooper - Fatt Booger Cuddle Cup Voice - Jenni Putney Kvold - Happy Anderson

written by Jonathan A. Goldberg music by Matt roi Berger

recorded, mixed and edited by Martin Fowler

__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/

JUMP, DUNK, AND WHALE!

                                   FUZZO In the fields of Minnesota, August ’92 The greatest mall ever designed was set to open soon With a cinnabon, an ice rink and rainforest cafe Twas the peak of architecture both then and today But someone was up to something So made that he was jumping around! The ghost called Spring Heeled Jack Planned to tear this mall right back to the ground Spring Heeled Jack’d been reading Marx for a non-credited course And he got some big ideas he planned to test by force But little did he know, two heroes happened to be In attendance at the ribbon cutting ceremony Forward for the Utah Jazz, The Mail Man, also known as Karl Malone! And with his Orca Dan, Underwater main man Jacques Cousteu Oh you know they’re gonna Jump Dunk and Whale! As Spring Heeled Jack unveiled himself to assail The structure of the mall, our two heroes split the throng and prepared. Well Jacques and Karl shared a look that said let’s go And Jacques threw some ninja sea stars at that jumpy ghost And then Karl grabs a basketball from who know where He passes it to Dan before he takes to the air A perfect Ally Oop Dan’s pass a perfect swoop and a dunk Right on to Jackie’s head That’s when that ghosty said “i’m sunk!” Because they’re gonna Jump Dunk and Whale A dream team’s your means to prevail They brought it to the post to send that springy ghost to jail Yeah you gotta, Jump Dunk and Whale When you team up you just can’t fail Gotta double team your troubles, get your power doubled to prevail! Yeah you gotta, Jump Dunk and Whale When you team up you just can’t fail Gotta double team your troubles, get your power doubled to prevail! __/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/ A COMPLICATED PLAN                             VALBORG Everyone listen close, let’s have another go At heart this plan is simple-ly complicated Eventually we’ll warp fold deep into Null space But first we’ll make some major changes:             PANGLA / FUZZO / HUPH / FELTINA / SONDRA Switching it up ship wide Slipping into disguise Pitch a tent with sting lights Circus ship we’ll look like Truth they’ll never surmise Catch the Null by surprise Oh oh oh oh!                             VALBORG That’s right and then part two we use a magic act Distract the Null from what we’re really doing Dankent and Sondra will set up a net field trap With lasers on a local moon While Huph performs and Kvold enjoys The net is shot and hits Disabling the power to the ship             PANGLA / FUZZO / HUPH / FELTINA / SONDRA In the dark and chaos Power loss is causing Valborg will deposit Drugs into their water Fuzzo will spread Gossip Pass out the narcotics Ai Ai Ai Ai!                             VALBORG This plan has many parts and nothing must go wrong If we miss a single step, we can kiss our butts so long Every cog that’s in this clock, require laser focus and total calm ...                             VALBORG Once all the Null are drugged, we slip into phase 3 Bloor and Pangla sneak aboard the Null Treasure Ship We all will follow, one by one, we’ll say we need To find the loo and take a piss The Fartknocker we’ll find and board And speed out on our way! Alive a free to head straight for the Brain!                               ALL This plan has many parts and nothing must go wrong If we miss a single step, we can kiss our butts so long If we can pull it off, they’ll sing our name in song                 VALBORG So one more time, go:               PANGLA / FUZZO / HUPH / FELTINA / SONDRA Slipping into disguise Circus ship we’ll look like Felt and Huph do magic Null are all distracted Laser net is set, shot Big ship is catch caught In the dark and chaos Valborg drugs their water Fuzzo spread gossip Hands out the narcotics Excuse to use the potty While their heads are foggy Hop on the Fartknocker Head off like a rocket! Ah ah ah ah ah! __/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/ HE’S GOING DOWN                             VALBORG Just take a deep breath Val / Keep it under control Things may seem darkest now, but - you never know Just need a moment here / just need an open look One well-placed hunting spear and his goose is cooked                              SONDRA The moment’s growing closer, please be still my beating heart Just need to figure out a plan to take these jerk apart Just need a moment and a moment’s all I hope to get If this guy’s as fearsome as everyone says he is                             VALBORG Everyone here’s                              SONDRA Counting on me                             FUZZO I’ll make the move                             FELTINA/HUPH Set us all free                             PANGLA I’ll blow him a kiss! Maybe he’s cute!                             BLOOR Bloor - Bloor Bloor Bloor Bloor Blooooor                            FELTINA/HUPH Just take a deep breath                             VALBORG Just take a moment, breathe                             FELTINA/HUPH If I don’t take him down, that means defeat                            VALBORG If I don’t take him down                            FUZZO That means that evil wins                            PANGLA If I don’t kiss him maybe he’ll be sad and throw a fit                           FELTINA/HUPH The moment’s growing closer, please be still our beating hearts                              SONDRA Just need to figure out a plan to take these jerks apart                              FUZZO Just need to jump him before he can even blink an eye                                ALL If I don’t make a move, my friends will die I’ll make my move / They count on me I’ll be the hero / I need to be He’s going down / I’ll set us free ...

                              ALL I made my move / I tried to breathe I met my match / We met defeat Is this the end? / Now we must wait and see Ah oh ah oh ah oh

[andersa]

The Kessel Gambit

With a final clunk, the noises of hard-dock abate, leaving just the hum of air conditioning units and electrical systems. It seems unnaturally quiet after all the alarms, high thrust manoeuvring and main armament activity, intermixed with the occasional thump and bang as shields took hits from the enemy. A total engagement time for this phase of the operation: 6 minutes 23 seconds. Seemed like longer, but then things do when you're having fun. It gets trickier from here on in. The run to Kessel was made exactly to schedule and, with small adjustments here and there, exactly to the planned course. A total of six hyperspace jumps with one placed close enough to a known deep space monitoring probe to provide just a hint of our incoming trajectory, giving the star-destroyer Armoured Evangelist just enough time to get wind of our arrival and intercept us as we came out of hyperspace, 0.2 AU from Kessel itself. Just another hunk of junk, making the spice run in the hope of turning a tidy profit and not getting blasted while trying. Or so it seems. But now the real mission begins. Noises in the access way beyond my hiding space signal the imminent arrival of stormtroopers. Sure enough, a second later, the airlock door is blasted open and a unit of white suited 'troopers enter the ship. The stormtroopers run past me and down the corridor towards the bridge and cargo space. I can sense that two remain stationed outside the airlock. There's some encrypted chatter back and forth between the troopers. Probably wondering where the crew are hiding (good luck with that - just little old me here!), and why the cargo hold is empty - except, that is, for the bomb on the cargo bay door. I send a signal to the bomb to blow the device. The cargo bay has a big door, and there is pure vacuum outside, so the resultant explosive decompression is pretty impressive. Air screams through the airlock as that which is lost from the freighter is replaced by air from the star destroyer's dock-space. Within half a second the pressure loss condenses the moisture out of the air and visibility becomes a greyed-out zero. Normally the dock's blast doors would automatically close to seal the breach, but I'm holding the nearest one open by an extension of Force. Time to move. I come out of my hiding place and float out of the airlock against the raging current of air, stopping just inside the blast door to link to the Armoured Evangelist's network using a droid interface. At the moment I have all the advantages - the element of surprise, and a full set of schematics and illicit access override codes uploaded into my processor. It takes me a fraction of a second to countermand the order the panicked ship sends to close all the blast doors​ on the dock level, and another couple of seconds to upload a hijacking routine to the destroyer's internal comms network that allows me to remain linked to the ship without a physical connection. As soon as it's done, I'm off. The fog clears as the remaining atmosphere in the dock space fades to vacuum. The blast doors are still open in the dock but air has stopped escaping, so someone with their wits about them must have manually activated the blast door beyond dock space. A few stormtroopers are revealed, scrabbling around, clutching their throats and generally suffocating. Threat risk is low. As I move down the access way, I transmit one of my purloined codes that gives me access to the Armoured Evangelist's core AI and begin uploading a set of instructions that are so large, it will take a full 10.68 seconds to complete. There are things to do before the upload is finished. The best kind of plans have plenty of resilience built in. If something goes wrong - an objective not possible to achieve, say, or an attack beaten off - then you need to switch seamlessly to the next priority, or attempt an already thought-out alternative tactic to achieve your primary aims. This plan - the one I'm following now - doesn't have that. This is a one chance only, blink and it's gone dash-for-glory attempt that the highly annoying C3 unit back at Polis Massa kept telling everyone who would listen had only a three-point-two percent chance of success. Cretin. What does it matter when your mission is almost certainly going to end in your death, even if it succeeds? Anyway - back to business. I'm at the closed blast doors between dock space and ship interior. No application of the Force will open these now they are locked shut. Brute force is what's required. Blasters are no good ('blast' doors, remember?) and so I rely on my other particular weapon - a light sabre. Not your normal, Jedi issued sabre though. Being a droid means I have certain, ahem, advantages over my biological brethren. Massive parallel processors in a really tiny space mean I have the ability to build three dimensional shapes in real time out of my sabre-generator ports - from lance like projections to a fully-enclosing (but sensor-blinding) sphere out to two meters from case exterior. In training there was no way a single sabre-wielding Jedi could best me in one-on-one combat. And as for stormtroopers... Lighting up a lance from a 'sabre port I push through the blast door; globs of molten metal and carbon-diamond composites bounce and fizzle all over the floor, then I extend the sabre's circumferential dimensions outwards to form a hollow cylinder through which I can fit. Another vortex blasts through the hole as air rushes in to fill the void in the dock space. Strangely enough, resistance on the other side is more concerned with breathing than taking careful aim. I'm through and away and off down the Armoured Evangelist's keel lateral access way that leads directly to engineering space. When I'd reviewed the stolen designs for this class of star-destroyer, it had been with a sense of awe and incredulity that I'd seen the keel lateral access way. Just over two thousand meters long from where I'd entered it, and a dead straight line from docks to just one bulkhead away from engineering, it offered an almost laughably easy route to the decks directly beneath operations, weapons control, communications and command. A pulsed laser-ranging shot down to the far end of the access way confirms a distance of 2032.56 meters from my position to the far end, and no obstructions in my path. All blast doors are open (no one has thought to manually close any - yet), and I make sure ship keeps it that way. I push up to maximum speed, passing through the sound barrier less than a second later, at which point the balance of available Force vs. resistance is achieved. A small object travelling at at 343.2 meters per second through a corridor makes for a hard target, but a few plucky 'troopers have a go. They all miss. Stormtroopers and droids scatter and tumble in the shock wave behind me. A few fall from the access way into the keel space beneath. I can't resist taking a look through one of the Armoured Evangelist's security cameras as I pass ... pretty awesome, if I say so myself. Exactly 4.98 seconds after setting off I begin braking, at the same time sending a spread of stuttered x-ray laser pulses a nanometer wide at the bulkhead wall. The bulkhead gives way in a shower of sparks, heat and light, and with a shrewd nudge with my shields, a diamond shaped section gives way and tumbles to the floor leaving a space just large enough for me to fit through. As I come to a stop inside the bulkhead wall and begin to make my way upwards, the upload of illicit code I started earlier completes. I execute the code, sending all access overrides I possess to make the Armoured Evangelist think it's being given commands by a Grand Admiral, and hope that by the time I reach the top the instructions have done their work. Things might get a little hot otherwise. As I negotiate through a maze of ducting, pipework, power conduits and thick, glowing bundles of optic waveguide cables, I hear alarms through the bulkhead wall. That can only mean the Captain has authorised the activation of the secondary internal defence system (thoroughly independent of the Armoured Evangelist's own systems, and therefore immune to my fiddling). Enforcer droids will now be let loose on a shoot-to-kill engagement protocol. I tangled with a K series some years ago and they make for pretty tricky opponents, with lightning fast target-and-fire routines. Far more accurate than your average biological stormtrooper. Better be careful. By the time I reach the level of the weapons control deck, space is getting tight. I'm having to move things around to keep heading upwards. Progress is slow. It's 36 seconds since I left the airlock. I'm behind schedule. Like a Siche-Tick bite making its host Worrt subservient to its parasitic whim, the illicit code has the Evangelist's AI under my command - at least for the next several minutes or so, until someone realises what's happened and reboots the ship's dyanamid quantum-core processors. I hope the courier makes it on time... *** "How's it looking Chewie?" The big wookie takes his eyes off the navigation screen for a moment, cocks his head to one side and let out a wavering howl that leaves Han in no doubt that his co-pilot is unconvinced by their chosen course. A lopsided smile spreads across Han's face as he stares out at the blue hyper-spacial star-scape through which the Millennium Falcon spears towards Kessel. "I know Pal, but just the bonus alone for this trip will easily pay off all our debts with the Hutts. It's worth a little risk don't you think?" Chewbacca looks again at the crazy human, and wonders once more if his decision to take up the offer of business partner and co-pilot had been a good one. His own race was renown for its fierceness in battle, and no-one would dare question his bravery if they wished to retain their motile appendages. Humans in general were a strange lot, too much concerned with messy, distracting emotions and often shy when it came to battle. Not this one though. Behind the innocent and friendly demeanour was a being with genuine fight and a streak of loyalty that rivalled even that of his own clan members. This particular human, however, was reckless. Very, very reckless. According to the nav computer, the course they’re taking will get them from Forrnos to Kessel in only four jumps, a total distance of just under 12 parsecs. The straight line course (at current orbital alignments) measures only 10.67 parsecs. Normally, to avoid crashing into one of the various debris fields, asteroid belts and black holes that litter space between the two worlds, a ship would have to make numerous jumps, changing course wildly each time to avoid running into something. A typical run to Kessel covered a distance of 16 to 18 parsecs. Twelve was practically a straight line. They were probably going to die. Chewbacca lets out another howl and looks questioningly at Han. "Well," says Han, "He was very certain that this course would work. He told me a ship left months ago to map out the asteroid belts and this course was perfectly safe. Besides, why give me bad information if it means he'd lose the cargo?" Han gave Chewbacca another of his winning smiles. "We'll be making the last jump in a short while. Why don't you check our package is ready for delivery?" Chewbacca leaves the flight deck and makes his way back to the cargo hold, murmuring his displeasure and concern all the way. In the hold, nestled amongst the machine parts they would trade on Kessel for spice, was the thing the man who'd chartered their services back in a bar in Spicant had given them to transport. Chewbacca pulls off a dirty cargo cover to reveal a battered, deactivated R2 astromech unit. Bending down to release the retaining straps, Chewbacca reads the model designation near the edge of the rounded top of the droid, 'R2-D2' it said. Well, R2-D2 is destined for a bizarre journey, thinks Chewbacca as he pulls it over to the starboard escape airlock, pushes the droid inside, and readies the lock for release. *** A sound below draws my attention. Hmm. Something is coming up after me. By the sound of it, it's an Enforcer droid. The Enforcer is much larger than me, so it's having to move a lot more stuff out of the way. While I can easily stop it, it's probably broadcast my position to its comrades, and right now they will be making their way to the weapons control deck and command deck above to meet me. It looks certain a firefight will have to be fought soon if I'm to achieve my goal. I eject an antimatter mine one millimetre in diameter out of my casing and direct it down the route I came from, timing it to reach the climbing droid and detonate a fraction of a second after I laser my way out of the bulkhead into the weapons control deck. Emerging from the wall in a shower of sparks, there is a moment of immobility on the part of the black suited men on watch, one lieutenant in particular open mouthed and staring in amazement at my sudden appearance. This comical tableau is shattered as the mine reaches the climbing droid and detonates, sending a shock-wave through the fabric of the ship and a blinding flash of pure white light through the hole behind me. The lieutenant drops to the floor blinded, but the weapons officers in their anti-flash helmets are not so afflicted. Side arms are drawn and fired with surprising rapidity. I'm already moving through the room, using both my shields and 'sabre to deflect the incoming plasma bolts. Those I deflect using the sabre I send back in the direction it comes from. Others bounce off my shields and ricochet off the walls, floor and ceiling. Shouts of alarm, grunts of pain, bright flashes, smoke and the familiar chemical markers of ozone and burnt flesh begin to fill the space as I head towards the exit. An Enforcer droid appears in the doorway, levelling its weapon at me, but I throw it aside using the Force and tumble out into the access-way. There is open space beyond, and it is a simple matter of clearing the anti-fall field barrier and head upwards to the deck above, where closed armoured doors prevent access to the command deck. Movement to the right and left give away the presence of several Enforcers, backed up by white suited stormtroopers heading in my direction. It is now 62 seconds since commencement of hostilities in the dock. According to my chronometers, there are 306 seconds remaining until the earliest arrival of the courier. Once I'm inside the command deck, the final phase can begin. Before I do that, I need to even the odds. I send an instruction to the Armoured Evangelist, then shunt my cognitive processing routines from a quantum state matrix to a biomechanical substrate. I can access solid state memory still, but my processing speed will be way slower. However - needs must... The Armoured Evangelist carries out my orders, over-rides the safeties on sixty high-capacity EMP ordnance pods in the fighter bay arsenal and detonates them. The resultant EMP blasts take out all droids on board, effectively knocking them unconscious until their systems reboot. Across the ship, all Enforcers, astromechs and service droids go still, offline. It will take several minutes for them to come up to full system readiness. Even if they do, I could tell the Evangelist to detonate another batch of EMPs. Because I'm in biological processing, things are ... slow. I'm protected from the EMP, but my thinking speed is now that of a human. That puts them at less of a disadvantage, but unless I run into Darth Vader himself, I reckon I'm the one with all the aces. Anyway, onward and upward. Admiral Graad awaits... *** "What do you mean, they're all disabled!" Admiral Graad looks down his long nose at Captain D'Horza, whose face turns an even paler shade of grey than normal as he stares up at the imposing visage of his superior. "It seems... It seems that our own ship set off an EMP charge that took down all the droids on board, sir." Captain D'Horza pulls at his collar and glances at the chaos around him as his officers try to make sense of what was going on and what had become of their ship's AI. "I fear that the attacking force has, somehow, taken over the ship and is using it against us!" "Fate's end, how is that possible?" Admiral Graad didn't expect Captain D'Horza to answer. He knew himself that such a thing was unheard of in the history of the Empire. Bangs and thumps on the command deck's blast doors heralded the arrival of their foe. How had they got here from the docks so quickly? Chatter from the radios and officers around him seemed to imply that a single assailant - possibly a droid of some kind - had been the cause of all this. One lieutenant nearby was questioning a subordinate on a comms link, asking them repeatedly if they were sure of what they had seen. The word 'light sabre' was used several times. Admiral Graad began to get that cold, sinking feeling he always had when in the presence of Lord Vader. Surely not, he thought. They were all destroyed decades ago, weren't they? With a shuddering groan the blast doors twist inwards and open slightly, just enough to let a roughly diamond shaped device the size of a disembodied head into the command deck, whereupon it floats along the deck directly toward him. For a moment, a vivid fiery-red glow is visible beyond the blast doors before they slam shut, cutting off the carnage beyond. Everyone in the room is frozen, seemingly unable to act. Faces peer up from the stations below as the invader-droid beelines towards their Admiral. "Greeting, Admiral Graad," the droid says in clear, Imperial Basic, coming to a halt a few meters away. Admiral Graad raises a quivering hand and points at the droid. "I know what you are! An Abomination!" "Touche, Admiral. Although it pleases me that you recognise me for what I am." "It's impossible! Your kind were all destroyed, years ago!" "It's true. Most of us were. In fact, I am the last, and, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear, soon to be no more." Admiral Graad lowers his arm and looks quizzically at the droid. "Vader was most persistent in his pursuit of the droid-Jedi,” it says. “As an experiment, we were rather good at what we did. But he needn't have bothered. We were all getting far too old for this sort of thing, even then. The melding of midichlorians and machine was not a happy experiment. Much of the time it is torment to us. Most of my kin long ago took death as a welcome release. I will soon follow them. But first, I have a task to complete." Admiral Graad looks askance, wondering what this strange abhorrent mix of machine and biology could want from him. Then, unbidden, the thing he least wanted to divulge, the secret he'd buried deep within him came clear in his mind, even as he struggled to resist the growing pressure around his neck. "No, not that! You can't have that!" he croaks, as he is lifted bodily from the ground. But those possessed of the Force were always very persuasive, and in the end, Admiral Graad can’t resist. He tells the droid everything it wants to know. *** The Armoured Evangelist tells me it has detected the signature of a ship's hyperdrive collapsing its singularity field. It's time. I drop the Admiral’s unconscious body to the deck, then give the Armoured Evangelist its last instructions and heave an inward sigh of relief. Death will be a blessing. *** "Hold on, Chewie! Twenty seconds until we drop out of hyperspace. Is the package ready?" Chewbacca howls a brief acknowledgement and readies the airlock release. "As soon as it's on it's way, we make for the rendezvous. Wouldn't want to run into any trouble this close to the mines, not with all the Imperial activity round here lately." Han gives Chewbacca one of his sly grins and slaps his co-pilot on the shoulder. "Ok, here we go..." The Millennium Falcon's nav computer dis-engages the hyperdrive and the star field collapses to a real-space view. Immediately a target alert begins blaring. Chewbacca roars his surprise and alarm. "I know, I see it!" Han begins powering up deflector shields and puts the Falcon into a hard turn. Close by their exit point is a vast glowing cloud of debris, expanding rapidly outwards in a blossoming petal shape. Bits of twisted metal and ceramic shoot past the hull and impact the shields, but fortunately the largest parts miss by several kilometres. Chewbacca hits the airlock release, and the old, battered astromech inside joins the expanding nebula of wreckage. "From the size of it, I'd say that until a few moments ago, that was a star-destroyer. What the hell happened to it?" Han looks at Chewbacca, who shrugs in reply. "You know what, never mind," says Han. "Let's get out of here." Han pushes the throttles to maximum, heading directly away from the last resting place of the Armoured Evangelist toward the relative safety of Kessel itself. *** Signal received from Outer Rim Sector - source location triangulated to near Kessel orbit. Decoded by Alliance milcom at station Polis Massa [Note: Encrypted code stream from high gain directional transmitter - likely source: Imperial Class Star-Destroyer] Begins: Mission codename 'Kessel Gambit' objective achieved. Information extracted from primary target. Auto-destruct of Star Destroyer 'Armoured Evangelist' made at courier arrival. Transfer of Death Star plans to infiltrator-spec astromech 'R2-D2' achieved using low power blast-hardened transmitter following auto-destruct; thereby preventing signal interception by Imperial monitoring station 'Jorrudor'. R2-D2 astromech will broadcast a low power distress signal on 121.5Mhz for Rebel Alliance pick-up in debris field. If Imperial or non-Alliance intercept results, R2-D2 will await further instruction from Alliance milcom. ENDS. Comments