#arkshipping

[joah-shipper]

Kinktober 2024

Day 5: Gags

The Next Step | Finn x Noah

_________

Finn's POV

__________

"Are you sure these are a good idea?" I ask , twiddling the item in my hand. Noah just playfully rolls his eyes at me.

He's reassured me that this is fine, that so many past couples have done the same thing in this place. Though, the idea of someone (especially Emily or Michelle) walking in on me having sex with my boyfriend in the costume closet is the slightest bit terrifying, even to me.

I've only been at the studio for a few months, this could potentially get me kicked out permanently.

"Relax, wow I can't believe I'm the one out of us two saying that. Barely anyone comes in here unless there's a competition coming up, and Regionals isn't for another three weeks.

“I have the door closed as much as possible with the wedge, so if anyone looks into the music room, they won’t see us, and we won’t get locked in.

“So, in all, the only way someone would catch us is if we make any noise, hence why I gave you that."

He points to the circular object I'm rolling around in my fingers: a ball gag. I've never used one before, having not bought any sex toys aside from a glass dildo. Even then, it's difficult keeping it hidden in my room from both my mom and sister.

His reasonings do reassure me though. Trust my smart-ass boyfriend out of everyone to calm me down on the rare occasion I get a bit scared.

“Alright then.” I trust him, he’s never given me any reason not to. Also, to be completely frank, I’m so horny right now.

“Follow my lead.” He says with an a durable smile. It’s the last thing he can before he secures the strap at the back of his head. Following suit, I find myself unable to speak much else either.

It’s a bit odd at first. My gums and lips are spread, making me bare my teeth like I’m an animal. As-well as this, the metal’s cold leaves a shock when it touches them. Not in a painful way though.

If anything, it makes me harder, and my cock is out straight and proud behind my boyfriend’s muscular ass as he leans against the wall to take it.

I’d usually tell him he looks incredibly hot like this, but that is a bit of an issue at the moment. Still though, he’s able to let out a little laugh and rub his hair against my neck as I wrap my arms around him.

Both of us moan quietly as my length stretches out his hole. We made sure to lube up and finger before putting on the gags, just to make things easier.

Even if our cries, groans and moans are muffled, it’s difficult to hide the noises of Noah’s cheeks getting clapped and my balls hitting into his. This just makes it so much more fun though.

If someone was to come into the music room and walk past thus door, they’d have no idea that we’re fucking just beyond it. That I’m railing my boyfriend and desperate to yell praises to him.

Noah’s grip tightens on the shelf, making it squeak slightly. At the start, this would’ve made me stop. But, at this point, all I can focus on is the sheer amount of pleasure coming from our love.

Pulling out of him, I rip off the condom, pump myself one last time, and finish over his tanned behind. I can see him doing the same to himself, so I drop to my knees and allow him to cum over every part of my face, ball-gag and all.

Neither of us pull them off yet, even though I know we desperately want to make out and giggle about the joy this brought us. No, we stay silent until our pants have died out, towels have cleaned us off, and we’re walking hand in hand to get some drinks at Shakes And Ladders.

Everyone we see on the way down completely unaware of what we just did.

[icy-saturday]

@samuniverse108 @spiritmander13 @silversupremacy @pwinkiepawzz

CW//TW: Death, intense battles, topics of a severe fictional illness

(I guarantee a third volume is on the way, just pls give me time, these don’t come easily >~<)

[end0parasitic]

giggles kicks feet. if the offer to ask you to talk about endoparasitic is still open do you want to talk about Luce

BOY DO I EVER.

the thing abt luce is that she is almost completely cynte’s foil, and yet she still outdoes him in befriending the parasites, and that’s the whole point! she has been ignored for so long that she seeks their company, she craves connection, and she’s empathetic to the point that she’s willing to hear them out and help them.

she and cynte are both blinded by their pursuit for power, and both to the same extreme. the only difference is luce was chosen, and he was not. she thinks that she has bested him, that despite his treatment of her that she was the superior one, when in reality she was doomed the moment she reached out to the parasites. this ties into the theme of religion and devotion, being chosen as a sacrifice and being honored. gods in this world function as a lense through which the characters see the world, and luce sees it through the lense of goodness. she literally worships optimism, but this has failed her because of her extreme loneliness. and so, she decides to see good in the parasites.

luce also really resents cynte, go figure. she takes pride in her empathy and feeling and morality, yet she releases the parasites. they are both so blind, and the parasites were puppeteering everything the entire time, except for cynte. luce is lonely in a cold world surrounded by uncaring people, and so when “pyeridae”, her goddess of light and love, chooses her, she thinks that she is exceptional in having those traits to more of a degree than others. because cynte has not embraced these same traits in himself, he cannot ascend to the level that she has. but, truly, the parasites just want to spread. luce is a gateway, a vessel, a puppet, a host, a hero.

but, she has been tricked. plain and simple. the parasite starts whispering to her, eventually taking her mouth and taking over her body, splitting apart her skin to reveal engorged bones. her spine grows too long for her back. her will is completely warped when the parasite wastes the people on the arkship without her say. do you think she saw karis on the arkship?

she’s dealing with a similar kind of insanity to the cultists, where their minds are very distorted due to the parasites. the difference with luce is that her state is very advanced. the will of the parasite and the will of luce are melded together, if you were to separate the two there would not be enough of either left to even one of them to continue living. she is completely infected.

“cynte?” “i wish… i wish you would’ve killed me when you had the chance.” this quote makes me very sad. she realizes she was a puppet, that this state is very painful for her, that she’s done horrible things. cynte obliges with her request, if a little late.

i like her :3 doomed by literally everything. thank you for the ask!

[loiladadiani]

"Moonlit Night on the Dnieper" by Arkhip Kuindzhi (1841 - 1910)

This wonderful painting is at the "State Russian Museum" in Saint Petersburg (the museum is housed in the Mikhailovsky Palace.) The State Russian Museum is the former "Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III," established by Nicholas II in honor of his father.

This painting was purchased from the artist's work-shop by Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who was so fond of it, he took it to sea with him while he was doing his naval training.

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a landscape painter from the Russian Empire. He studied painting mainly independently and at the Saint Petersburg Art Academy. He was a co-partner of traveling art exhibitions (Peredvizhniki.) In his mature period, Kuindzhy aspired to capture the most expressive illuminative aspect of the natural condition

[tropinui]

The Residents of the Terrakey Arkship

The Terrakey has a scifi version of itself existing in DR4, and onboard the terrarium arkship, the Matari, the Birdknights and the Mainan have carved an existence.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #34 – Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Overview

I have had this on my list for long enough for my request that the local library get a copy actually result in me getting my hands on it. It’s the third instalment (the last? I’m not sure – the ending here felt like far less of a natural conclusion than the ending to either of the previous two) of what is for my money some of the absolute best space opera (maybe even just science fiction writ large) of the last decade. I actually opened it with a real sense of trepidation; Children of Ruin had ended on an optimistic, open-ended note, with the creation of an interstellar and inter species society that was both deeply aspirational and incredibly alien. I wasn’t sure how a book from their perspective would even work. Thankfully, my fears were basically misplaced – there’s definitely a drift in tone and focus from where the series started, but the thematic heart’s still there, and this was overall a joy to read.

Synopsis

Following the end of Children of Ruin, we have a nomadic society of uplifted spiders and squids, Humans (the capitalization signifies infection by an engineered retrovirus to help with empathy and accepting/valuing the Other), the formerly all-consuming alien microbal parasites of Nod (who have agreed to only assimilate the identities of those who expressly consent to the process), and various instances of Avranda Kern (millennia old upload of a meglomaniacal mad scientist who is by a quirk of history now the OS all computers run on). After making tentative Second Contact with a half-terraformed world now inhabited by a civilization of debatably-sentient crows, an exploration ship takes on a pair of them as ambassadors before finding their way to way what seems to be a struggling but holding on colony founded by one of the last arkships of refugees to escape the ruins of Old Earth. .

Intercut with this is the narrative of that arkship arriving, very much the worse for wear after two thousand years and change hurtling through the void with its crew and cargo in cryo. The world is hardly what they hoped for – only ever half-terraformed, breathable atmosphere and some basic engineered microbal life, but entirely lacking any sort of biosphere – but it’s not like they have another option. They make the best of it they can, using what working technology they have to bootstrap a basic ecosystem of pigs and trees, a few species of bugs and fungi, enough to farm and build with. And the core crew holds out hope that the faint trace of a strange signal buried in the hills near their colony might lead to something more.

Intercut with that is the story of Liff, a young girl in the colony as things take a turn for the worse. That’s when things start to get weird.

Xenophilia

The best way for me to get across the central theme of this whole series is ‘more star trek than star trek’ (or at least, than any star trek produced since I’ve come of age). It believes is absolutely nothing so strongly as it believes in the pure and perfect virtue of curiosity, that the point of existence is to discover, and to share what you have discovered with those around you. It is an oft-repeated point that the overwhelming majority of the universe is cold and empty, and anything different is worth seeking out and treasuring for its own sake – that every shred of diversity is the cosmos is a wonder in its own right.

Which is the entire purpose our protagonist’s civilization has set themselves – the distributed fleet of pathological scientists and novelty-seekers, leaving behind teeming cities and orbital habitats for a life seeking the mysteries of the universe with tiny circles of peers. It’s very Starfleet, in its most idealistic and elevator-pitch form.

And even beyond them, curiosity, discovery and exploration are treated as basically heroic wherever they’re found – Captain Holt and the Enkidu might have been doomed, but they’re still presented as deeply and wholly admirable for trying.

It goes beyond that, too. This is one of vanishingly few space opera settings I can think of with a cast full of distinct and dissimilar species, where none of them are orcs. Or dragons, for that matter. No matter how monstrous and horrifying a species seems – spiders the size of your head, the mad remnant of an ancient demiurge, all-consuming and replicating alien parasites – the answer is diplomacy, outreach, communication. Both sequels in the series have begun with a civilization formed through the total (though not seamless) integration of alien societies from the last book into a greater whole. The parasites from Children of Ruin best exemplify this, I think – convinced that consuming and assimilating everything it can reach will result in nothing but a universe of itself, compared to walking through the world with a soft touch and appreciating all the different dynamics that can develop through so many myriad perspectives. And now one of them is basically the book’s main protagonist (and very guilty about all the nonconsensually-eating-people thing).

Whereas in Memory it’s not exactly subtle that the intolerance and violence against social deviants is presented as basically a symptom of material scarcity and desperation. When Landfall is doing well, the little band of infiltrators – strange, nonverbal artist, discomfortingly informative schoolteacher, standoffish and thoroughly gender nonconforming woodswoman – are affectionately tolerated and appreciated for what they can do. When the harvests are bad and the forests are rotting – well who even needs abstract art or history lessons to begin with? They’re lashed out at, used as just one of a growing set of scapegoats, and when things are dire enough, again and again, they end up on the noose. Intolerance is a self-harming reflex, a wounded animal lashing out because it can neither understand nor change the actual source of its pain. Again, Star Trek but moreso.

The ‘moreso’ does a lot of work in this comparison, to be fair. The series shares Star Trek’s deep love of science just like it shares its pathological liberalism – it’s just consistent about it. The crew explorers are casually transhuman (transarachnid, transcephlopod, etc) - immortal and physically enhanced, capable of sharing and downloading both memories and skills, visibly aging or carrying scars only as a fashion statement. It is treated as a casual fact of life that letting an experiment progress might mean going into cold sleep for decades or centuries, if there is no better way for a group of six on a small ship to while away the time while they wait. Technology has conquered scarcity on anything like a personal scale, and the explorers take full advantage.

Which is probably downstream of the books not being particularly caught up on ‘humanity’. I mean, humans are there – are very important! - but to the extent they’re the axis the universe turns upon, it’s only the ghosts of the old empire. Modern humans are just one part of interstellar civilization, and not even its most numerous or prominent. Humans have a unique way of thinking (as does everyone else) but no monopoly on heroic drive or virtue.

Curious Corvids

Each book in the series feels marketed around a different uplifted animal arising from the ruins of humanity’s imperial glory and galaxy-spanning hubris. This is not wrong, but it definitely becomes less right as the series progresses.

Children of Time is about the spiders. There’s humans too, sure, but I’ve yet to see a single person who read for the Gilgamesh plotline. By wordcount and thematic focus and just what makes it an interesting book, it is about the evolution of Portid intelligence and civilization across the millennia. The real protagonist of the novel is the species.

Children of Ruin is still kind of about the uplifting of the Squids. Senkovi’s efforts and relationship with them gets a decent amount of focus, as does the development of their civilization after the terraformers’ death. They just share top billing with the alien aliens, and rather than just being the climax of the story Second Contact is the real meat of the entire plot.

In Children of Ruin the introduction of the corvids almost feels like a publisher mandate – their history and backstory is basically brushed over in the prologue and one interlude, Second Contact basically a triviality. It’s not that they’re not important to the book or its themes, or that they’re not interesting (in both cases they very much are!), but they feel like a b-plot. Supporting what the book is about, not defining it.

Which to be clear, is from a writing perspective almost certainly the correct choice – ‘Children of Time but with a different species’ would still be fascinating, but it really doesn’t cohere as a continuing and linked series. I just think you could have dug some more meat out of the abbreviated history given there. What fanfic is for, I suppose.

It’s a funny sort of distinction that unlike the others, the corvids aren’t technically uplifts – the considered opinion of the series is that while spiders and squids would require millenia of nanite-assisted directed evolution to develop anything that looks like human-level sapience, in the right environment crows would just Do That (admittedly with the addition of alien radiation scrambling DNA and increasing mutation rate by an order of magnitude or two).

The other trend with the different uplift species as the series has gone on is that with each book they become neurologically and psychologically weird. The spiders had Understandings and a bunch of predator- and cannibal-instincts, but they’re still each an individual intelligence. The squids are a central brain and a bunch of semi-autonomous limbs which are only barely on speaking terms with the conscious mind. And now the crows are not individually intelligent at all – they think and live in pairs, one observing and recalling, the other analyzing and inferring, actual intelligence appearing only in the dialogue and interaction between the two. Which makes chapters from their POV very entertaining, at least.

Sentience and Identity

The book’s very interested in both – it’s probably the most central and explicit theme of the entire thing. Our crows, having given the matter thorough and careful reflection, eventually decided that they weren’t sentient at all (that nothing is, really) – or at least, that’s the series of sounds they make when asked. Our other main characters include:

an alien parasite which has assimilated a copy of a woman’s consciousness and now imitates her so well she often forgets she’s anything else

a copy of a sliver of an instance of an upload of an ancient terraformer, who for a nontrivial period of time was running on hard that was mostly ant colony

an extremely detailed simulation of someone who could have but never did exist

(arguably) the simulation they are running on.

The book comes down pretty solidly on a ‘if it quacks like a duck’ model of personhood – and cheats a bit in terms of giving most of the above POV chapters and obvious internal monologues – but the question of who counts as sentience and as a person, and of what ‘sentient’ and ‘person’ even mean – are ones that various characters spend a lot of time and angst on.

The answer the book arrives at isn’t exactly a surprise – see above, more star trek than star trek – but it’s still an interesting angle to look at everyone from.

Genre Ambiguity

The book is clearly, self-evidently science fiction, but Tchaikovsky still has a lot of fun playing around with some fantasy tropes and imagery in it. Liff is an adolescent who dearly loves her book of ancient fairy-tales, and so our view of Landfall and the world beyond it, which means basically her entire plotline is narrated with a fairy-tale sensibility. In fairness, Kern and the crows do an excellent job accidentally seeming like a witch and her familiars. Landfall’s whole deal seeming a lot more like a fairy curse than anything from the inside doesn’t hurt, either.

While it’s science fiction, Memory is definitely softer science fiction than the previous books in the series. In general, human- and human-descended technology all at least has the convincing appearance of rigour and plausibility, while anything alien falls solidly into the real of space magic plot devices. So we get elaborate narration on the exact details of how the crew of the Enkidu bootstrap a functional ecology around Landfalll before their high technology begins giving out, but the simulator buried in the hills Just Works. Which as neat a way to do the division as any, really, but there’s a real shift in tone from Time where just about everything feels like it’s from the first category. I mean, they have fTL now!

Conclusion

This isn’t really a book I’d call groundbreaking – Children of Time has much more of a claim to novelty in both subject and presentation – but it’s one that I think solidly achieves everything it tries to? The writing’s good, the characters all cohere, the themes are explored intelligently. Plus, Kern is probably one of my favourite characters of all time.

So y’know if you don’t have major issues with spiders, multiple POVs and unclear timelines, or existential angst, would solidly recommend.

[vegvasignal]

| Reporting final stages of construction of the orbital ring 'Oegvann'. | Overall status of completion﹕ >>> Ring-frame Structural Integrity - 100%. >>> 'Oegvann's Orbit Similarity to Homeworld - 99.9999% >>> Atmosphere Similarity to Homeworld - 99.97% >>> Flora's Colonization of Land Surface - 95.41% >>> Homeworld's Fauna Species Reconstituted - 81.79% >>> Biosphere Integrity - 91.27% | The Collective engaged in territorial expansion during the season of Dhalamug's Sowing. Estimates predict that within the next few hibernation cycles, the entire surface of the orbital ring will be fully colonized and reach its maximum operational capacity. Next decade will allow us to construct a second Arkship using the orbital's construction decks.

| Current orbit's arc allows for a healthy hibernation cycle to commence. Most of the Collective's members have chosen to do so on 'Oegvann', spending their final season of Oegvann's Honour in makeshift houses. Preparations for a natural hibernation have been initiated, as some chose to do so without the use of sleep-pods. Adverse effects are anticipated, with medical staff on standby to ensure a smooth transition into the next cycle.

| Initializing the next phase﹕ Transition into defensive mode to guard the Collective during hibernation. | Passive observation protocols launched. | Diplomatic relations proceed as normal. | Standing by until further developments.

[matrose]

children of memory is crazy so far because the first timeline is normal ark ship business that i know from the first book but the second timeline is a fairytalesque story about a girl seeing the ghost of her grandfather (captain of the previously mentioned arkship) and then getting lost in the woods and encountering some sort of strange not quite human people that want to eat her. i love it here

[cuppajj]

I do have a lot of quastions about the mech pilot au but these are the ones I'm most curious about:

- how do titans work - do cityspeakers work double time or is something else involved?

- in that vein, what is the Lost Light like? assuming it's part of the mech pilot au similar to your sentient ll au

- do you have any crumbs of mech pilot au mythos/historical records/urban legends to share? I do love me some in-universe lore tidbits

I wrote a little about titans in the greater lore post, so for convenience I'll put what I had here before answering:

Titans are directly spawned from Primus, and the only case of a fully sentient mecha. Curiously though, they can create artificial human bodies to masquerade as an ordinary mech pilot. Some are the size of entire cities, though others are only the size of massive starships. Long ago, the city titans served as as vessels tasked to form colonies on other planets, while the starship titans were talked to chart the edges of the known universe. However, some have remained on Cybertron, and their artificial human consciousnesses walk among ordinary society. Their speakers are real humans who attain cybernetic attachments to help them last longer with their titan, but they are still mortal and die after thousands of years.

On that note:

Speakers are normal humans who receive cybernetic enhancements that extend their lifespan, so they can serve their respective titan the same way they do in the normal universe. They're still mortal however, and are rotated once every ~10,000 years. Being a speaker is a lifelong commitment, and much of their time is devoted to being with their respective titan. It's kinda similar to going to live in a monastery, what with the potential isolation and commitment, but speakers still get more free time than that.

okay so I’m kinda in contention with if I actually want LL to be sentient here, my brain really wants them to be canonically sentient in the main au (esp because the events of MTMTE don’t really happen here) but at the same time, I don’t want to go inserting sentient LL into everything since they’re technically an au in themself! I know mech pilot is my own au but still 😂 that being said I def wrote some parts of the lore post with LL in mind so maybe, anyway: Sentient!LL would be a titan who spends most of their time using their artificial human form (titans don’t turn into humans, they’re more like puppets they control remotely with their own consciousness). Pyxis, their first and only speaker, died eons ago, and they haven’t had another since. Light would be friends with the staff at the academy/organization that trains mech pilots and sends them on missions, especially the uppers (Ultra Magnus in particular). He also hangs out with Rodimus, though their dynamic isn’t the same as it is in the normal SLLAU. Light is still parental in nature to him, but they’re more of an aunt/uncle or family friend figure who isn’t always there but brightens everyone’s day when they are. LL the titan is the same size as their normal counterpart I’d say, which in human proportions is a lot bigger. They were likely meant to serve as an arkship, but they might’ve been a little late to the party.

Still working on the lore bits but for some small bits I’ve been thinking about: humans (cybertronians) have colonies on other planets outside the main set of planets, and there are ancient ruins scattered throughout the galaxy rumored to be built by the knights of cybertron (Rodimus is interested in this). I said these to you in dms but just to reiterate here for everyone else: The best of the best pilots have been to Unicron (The primes and their closest allies), and they’re actually tracking his movement, and there’s a routine visit to it to keep the tracker up to date. The guiding hand was like the first five pilots (with rung in possession of the first forged from Primus’s core), while the 13 were the first 13 to traverse the stars. This could change though so nothing guaranteed!

The quintessons might’ve been Quintus Prime’s fault, splitting from everyone and deciding to do funky life making magic on a desolate planet isn’t going to end well if you mess up

The organization that hires and trains mech pilots is an offshoot of a special organization that has been guarding the planet since before the era of Optimus. Postwar, most of this org consists of Autobots with Optimus himself at the helm.

[rainbowgod666]

If youre listening to this, were already dead.

This is Arkship [Auric][Hope], and we have failed our mission. The drawing before you is a crude representation of what our [Deeper] Space Scanners detected. That is [Corolla][Death][Aura], its name is impronunciabile but... its currently eating our galaxy. The red dot was another civilization who figured out that our galaxy was alive. But somehow, they got wiped out by the [Ring of light]. The blue dot is our planet and...

Its not inaccuracy: our planet's [Star System] is currently just a few [12 biillion] [.936 Km] off [the ring]. Too close for anybody to escape its winds, and making [wrath/fury/anger/judgement] an undeniable truth, rather than a long lost myth. Our people may be dead. But our mission to save our race goes on

- last recording sent from SCP-17235, after Project Aurora

[dancing-coyote]

Oh I also wanna do the ask game!

Numbers 3, 7 and 17 for whichever fics you choose!

Hmmm I think I'll run with Perihelion for this one, since I haven't talked much about it so far :')

3. Whose your favorite character for this chapter/fic?

Scarecrow, hands down. He's the reason I started writing Lost In Space (2018) fic in the first place lmao

7. What is your favorite scene you’ve written so far?

A quiet tread, almost imperceptible, caught Maureen's attention, and she sat up slightly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I was just-" Thinking it was John, she started to turn, but froze in place when a copper-plated arm reached past her, one knifelike claw glinting as it tapped against the console. Barely even daring to breathe, she leaned back an inch, slowly looking up to see Scarecrow leaning over her, close enough to touch if she just leaned two inches to the side - but his full attention was on the display. She couldn't quite see his faceplate from her angle, but she could see the plates covering his "throat" working silently, shifting back and forth in tiny movements against his warm orange body lights. This close, she could smell him - a warm metallic scent not unlike a sun-warmed Chariot hull. The soft tap, tap, tap of his claw on the screen drew her attention back, and she wordlessly watched as he zoomed in on the map of the Amber Planet, turning it this way and that, clearly studying the trajectory she'd so painstakingly laid out. And, with another two decisive taps, he moved their landing zone nearly one hundred kilometers northwest. Swallowing against the dryness that had formed in her mouth, Maureen kept her eyes on the console. "...What are you doing?" The light shifted slightly, and she could feel him looking at her, just for a moment. Then, with a satisfied chirrup, Scarecrow turned away again, his oddly quiet footsteps receding into the dark once more.

17. Share the previous 5 sentences. 

Beyond that towering rock formation, only a short distance away, lay the outer fringes of the arkship's crash site. And his target. The humans seemed to be under the impression that he intended to retrieve the rift engine from the crashed ship - but finding that piece of machinery in such an immense debris field would, in Ben-Adler's words, "be like finding a needle in a haystack." No, he didn't intend to waste time looking for that engine, not when there was a perfectly good engine sitting at the edge of the debris field, ripe for the taking. Doing so would have the added benefit of rendering the attending ship useless and unable to pursue them. So even if the humans were displeased at the risk-taking, it was worth the minuscule amount of added danger.

Okay I cheated a little and made it six lines for the sake of clarity

[icy-saturday]

Lasko, a descendant of Lüfter

[end0parasitic]

ARKSHIP. ARKSHIP??/// THE IMPLICATIONS. twisted is a really specific descriptor miziziziz. could u mean one shifted negatively from their original form. could you mea

[pyxisastronautica]

U: Oh, hmmm...Let's see. There were the starfish, the birds, the foxes, the chameleon forest...

A: Amoy speaking! Hello Chi. I will...lend Uniform a hand.

We labeled the "starfish" Trilaterians. Armored things with six eyes on stalks, three to six running legs that they gallop on the tips of, depending on their stage of growth, and twelve tube like arms ending in suckered hands. They have no spoken language, but communicate through a very involved sort of sign language. The groups that we found seem to be paleolithic in development, making portable huts of hide and bone which they draw pictures of wildlife and landmarks on.

The "birds"- according to the scholars we spoke to, they are called the Guachitrrung, though we didn't stay long enough to interview more locations so I can't tell you that it's a universal name for them. They are feathered lemur-like folk with proto-wings, but their heads are more like that of spiders with teeth as well as fangs. Nonetheless, they have a vibrant tonal language and a talent for metallurgy, though their homes were most often wooden and set high in the canopy of the great boreal forests where they lived. The city we visited was rather more medieval, though we observed settlements from afar that ranged roughly from tribal to bronze age.

The "foxes" are digitigrade mammaloids that are actually much more bird-like in their posture than the Guachitrrung. They resemble fennec foxes, though they have venomous fangs and snake-like tails that end in fan-like flaps. They just seemed to hit the beginning of their industrial era, though their largest and oldest metropolitan areas are in floodplains next to hot, dry areas like deserts and savannas. We did not get to make much headway on deciphering their language, unfortunately. They were terribly afraid of us. We think that at least some of them call themselves Aularowng, from what we could pick up by surveillance.

The "Chameleon Forest" is a tentative name. It is...well. A great clonal organism whose surface appears to be that of a forest. We do not know now to categorize it exactly, in terms of technological achievement. It uses little round fuzzy carapaced things as symbiotes to build as it wishes, but shows little interest in making a civilization. I suppose it does not need to. But it is very intelligent- this we learned from the fact that it is capable of rapidly changing the pigment in its bark and leaves. On its gray bark it began to make...reflections of us. On its "leaves" it began to haphazardly imitate the letters it saw on our tablets. When we endeavored to teach it to read, it seemed to understand readily despite being very unfamiliar with anything like us.

It told us its children hadn't yet sprouted yet, and it was waiting for them. Other such clonal organisms like it on the planet seemed far more cautious of us, and disinclined to discussion, so we don't really have a good idea of their overall sapience.

Additionally, we must mention that although we did not find them, our arkship did of its own accord land upon a habitable- and inhabited- planet without our knowing initially. The Krell’Aezril are a species of beaked reptilian centaur-like people. Diverse languages and cultures, petroleum age technology.

The humans of the Triskelion...tried to exterminate them. They were able to survive and resist long enough for native viruses to begin evolving strains that could infect humans. TCCAI, made to coordinate the robotic army being used to that end, saw that continuing that war would more than likely mean the death of our ship's people with how they had been weakened, and staged a coup. It has negotiated peace with the Krell'Aezril on the condition that humanity's expansion does not continue on their planet, and remains in control of the colony that does exist to this day.

As for the humans that now live deep within Earth's crust- Hades, they call their civilization- they...did indeed once have space-age technology. At the very least, lightspeed travel and the knowledge of how to create habitable zones on the solar system's otherwise uninhabitable planets and moons...But that knowledge was lost over the ages, and they seem to have regressed to a degree that is...if I had to estimate based on your descriptions of your world, maybe only a century or two ahead of yours, give or take. They are unfamiliar with robots as advanced with us and...we...haven't really told them what we are yet.

E: We will though, one day. It is my hope that we will be able to slowly introduce them to the idea of sapient, sentient robots like us.

I must say though, Chi, that you are quite precocious to be seeking out such a goal. It is of course commendable not only that you care so deeply for your guardian, but that you have the academic honesty and curiosity to pursue your own solutions first. Perhaps in doing so you will come up with solutions even we had never thought of!

(Also I will confess I was perhaps a little overeager to share in retrospect. I do certainly believe that clean and abundant energy would be a boon to mankind wherever they lack it, but...I didn't really stop to consider the geopolitical effects it might have on your world- to say nothing of the pressure it would put on you. I'm sorry about that. I would certainly still like to help you, but I would like to minimize possible harm if I do.)

Either way, your guardian is correct. You will have all of your life to help repay the kindness you are shown- which I am sure she would happily give to you whether you could or not. Trying to do good for your world along the way speaks to a very good heart in you, I think, and that is itself an incredibly precious thing. I wish you and your group good luck and good marks on your project.

The language translation is very difficult. It will likely take a long time, but that seems to be accounted for by using the idle time to do it. Has there been much headway between the translation of the four species? And what are the four species that have achieved the sapience?

What sort of technology does the current human civilization you are in have? Is it the same technology level that creates the spaceships and the robots?

That is a very interesting creature, the one that spews gas and ignites it with fire. We rarely see things that are less small here beyond an elephant and a giraffe, which is around 4-5 humans tall. They do not spew gas or attempt to use fire. They mostly just their physical prowess to defer enemies. They are also edible, but eating an elephant specifically is frowned upon as it is believed elephants are close to sapience.

That is interesting that a plant is able to react with noise when it seems to sense the danger. Maybe it evolved to have some sort of light receptors on its surfaces, The fact it developed acid likely means it probably hunts insects or animals.

--

Hello Echo and India. My guardian takes care of me, so it is right for me to take care of her back.

I do not have the nanotechnology. I heard there is some going on the other side of the world, but it is not something that is common. I am happy that we are in the right direction though with the pigment-based electron capture. I am going to go to the Library to see if there is something that will be useful.

45-55% efficiency is a lot, especially when put into practical use. Ava calculated a theoretical maximum based on her tech, but that is the theoretical. We will be lucky if we can get half that in practice. I will see if I can get the relevant information from the Library first; this is supposed to be a group project so that everyone participates. But if we hit a dead end, I will ask.

We are figuring how to make cheap electricity, so I can help my guardian make money. Because she spends a lot of money on us. My guardian said to do my best, but it is okay and to not be disappointed if nothing comes from it.

[rosemariecawkwell]

TBR Pile Audiobook Review: Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

TBR Pile Audiobook Review: Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The unmissable follow-up to the highly acclaimed Children of Time and Children of Ruin. When Earth failed, it sent out arkships to establish new outposts. So the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive on Imir, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and…

[vegvasignal]

| Announcing: Collective-wide consensus trance. | This platform had sent a public message for all members of the Collective with a request converge on the Arkship. All were welcome and awaited to join: including those on distant colonies who had chosen to live on-world despite the negative effects of non-Vegva environment.

| This momentous occasion is marked by an initiative from scientists of all clans and creeds to construct a habitable orbital ring -- an Orbital. The data we have gathered from our recent project of the Arkship's Animal Habitat Extension, and in large part very promising results in resurrecting extinct species of Vegva, has prompted an attempt to achieve something only our long-gone ancestors of Chalus galaxy were able to. | The schematics of ancient orbitals are still stored within this platform's memory and, on the basis of those, our mega-engineers are able to formulate a solid plan of construction.

| When the initiative was presented to all people in the form of the first consensus session, it was received jubilantly with praise and hope for a new chapter in the history of the Kin. Deprived of a home to live on for far too long, we will finally have a solid ground underneath our feet. | In just a few hours after the first consensus session alone, this platform has witnessed an unprecedented flow of applicants wishing to join this initiative and lend their skills or help for the cause. | Calculating... | Estimating... | Current calculations tell the number of unique applicants is approaching 81% of the Arkship's total population and continues to rise. By this platform's estimates, this number is expected to reach the 90% mark or even higher. | This platform poses that this is indeed a significant statement of our unity and purpose. We sincerely hope that our allies in PEACE and other friends all across this galaxy will lend their hands and expertise to realise our dream. | As for how we should call this project, it was unanimously agreed upon to name it after our High God of Community, Creation, and Unity. According to myth, it was He who granted the first Kin their telepathic head-arcs and thanks to whom the Kin were never alone ever since. | The name for the Orbital shall be 'Oegvann'.