#ceres station

[lady-wyrd]

The Expanse 1x06

[youwontbelievethethingsiveread]

Reading Babylon's Ashes, it's striking me how Marco Inaros is making a fair bid to drive humanity extinct altogether. Killing Earth is bad enough, but he's also doing a really bad job in the Belt; scattering supplies all over the solar system in random containes, throwing away all the water on Ceres and leaving six million people to fend for themselves. I know he doesn't actually think anything through, but the Belt is not going to survive him either if he's left to run rampant.

I remember where he finishes from my first read but not how it got to that point; I really hope more people are going to abandon his grand revolution because throwing out water and air is something only a madman would do (and we know he is and they should see it too)

[omusasteelhorn]

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Ceres stations retrograde

Timeline (current events in bold)

Thursday, February 29, 07:44 UT - transiting Ceres enters pre-retrograde shadow, 7°29’ Capricorn

Wednesday, May 15, 05:36 UT - transiting Ceres stations retrograde, 21°33’ Capricorn

Monday, August 26, 07:39 UT - transiting Ceres stations direct, 7°29’ Capricorn

Monday, November 11, 22:43 UT - transiting Ceres exits post-retrograde shadow, 21°33’ Capricorn

Caveat: this probably won’t have much of an impact on you, personally, unless Ceres is prominent in your chart. (What might that look like? Ceres closely in aspect with the Sun, the Moon, &/or an angle; possibly strong Virgo &/or 6th House energy.)

You hate to see this happen, just as the Northern hemisphere growing season gets underway. But humanity can’t learn any other way than the hard way, I suppose.

We need to look at all of Ceres’ areas:

Procreative sexuality, parenting, children, family

Child and elder care, nurturing professions

Agriculture, gardening, growing cycles, food

Concern for domestic animals

…and consider where we are

too focused on outward achievement at the expense of the inner self

too much emphasis on control and manipulation; opportunism, self-seeking

pessimistic, melancholy, repressed

confirmity, rigidity, lack of imagination

Xx

Give the May aspects more time to manifest - Ceres is moving very slowly. In fact it’s impossible for me not to consider these first aspects as a group:

Thursday, May 16 -

Ceres Rx/Capricorn square Chiron/Aries, 21°32’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn trine Venus/Taurus, 21°32’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn square Mars/Aries, 21°01’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn opposite Vesta/Cancer, 20°56’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn trine Mercury/Taurus, 20°55’

The pieces highlighted in red show the main deal here: a transiting Cardinal sign t-square, with both Mars and Chiron in Aries aggravating the Ceres-Vesta opposition. Familial/tribal wounds, and our anger about them, are at the core of our Ceres Rx problems. The trines from Venus and Mercury soothe us. Try not to rush to solutions, or let ego and vanity get in the way.

The rest of the aspects, on the other hand, will be felt a few days on either side of the date given:

Wednesday, June 12 - Ceres Rx/Capricorn sextile Saturn/Pisces, 19°10’. Accepting responsibility; taking more of an authoritative role. We’re able to work hard at it.

Tuesday, June 25 - Wednesday, June 26:

Ceres Rx/Capricorn opposite Mercury/Cancer, 16°44’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn trine Juno/Virgo, 16°31’

The first of a pair of “easy oppositions” - here, the arguments of Ceres opposite Mercury find creative, practical solutions via Juno. Mutually nurturing partnerships featuring communication! This is also a good time for therapy.

Saturday, June 29 - Sunday, June 30:

Ceres Rx/Capricorn opposite Venus/Cancer, 15°44’

Ceres Rx/Capricorn trine Mars/Taurus, 15°37’

This “easy opposition” is very, very, very fertile. If you don’t want to become a parent, you’re probably best off abstaining. The relationship tension of the opposition finds release through Mars - work on being confident and self-reliant.

Friday, July 5 - Ceres Rx/Capricorn opposite Sun/Cancer, 14°25’. Ego; not being treated like an authority angers us. And yet we don’t much appreciate other people bossing us around!

Sunday, August 11 - Ceres Rx/Capricorn trine Venus/Virgo, 8°07’. By this point Ceres will be almost stationary and about (in a couple of weeks) to turn direct. This is a very sweet, helpful conclusion - we love our families and show it in practical, useful ways.

[seafoamreadings]

big things that are coming

doing another one of these because the last one seemed quite popular and helpful! here are the next few big astrological events, in case you want to prepare, mark your calendar, or simply brace yourself.

pluto retrograde - on may 2nd, pluto, having barely gotten established in aquarius, starts to head back to capricorn. you still have some time (months) before that ingress, and when it happens it will be brief. and most of the outer planet retrogrades pass uneventfully, but the stations such as this one will feel a bit like being uprooted somehow, perhaps in a way that feels like a setback. whether it really is a setback or not is yet to be told. this is more likely to herald big changes on a global stage than in the personal life although it can do both!

ceres retrograde - the station of ceres on the 14th, in capricorn, may also cause some consternation. this time it will be more focused on your nutrition, physical health, and perhaps a relationship with a motherly figure. this will be more personal/social and less global/geopolitical than the pluto one before it.

jupiter into gemini - jupiter only changes sign only about once a year so this is a fairly big deal. it hasn't been in gemini since 2013. in a sense you may be revisiting themes from that era of your life in the next several months. you're not powerless about them if they were unfavorable themes; you can always act and react differently now with the wisdom of more than a decade now past. ask many questions, learn many things, and communicate with people around you even if they are people you wouldn't normally interact with much.

jupiter (on mercury) trine pluto - at the beginning of june immediately following jupiter's ingress into gemini, this helpful trine stimulates deep communication - not just verbal - and brings power out of it. jupiter trines to pluto are not unheard of, but this airy and social one is powerful and hopefully will also bring us good news on some global scale.

[yunnathearcher]

⋆⭒𓆩♡𓆪 The Astrology of February 𓆩♡𓆪⋆⭒ 02/01: Waxing Crescent Moon in Pisces 28°; Moon ↠ Aries 02/03: Moon ↠ Taurus 02/04: Venus ↠ Aries; Jupiter stations direct in Gemini 11° 02/05: ◐ First Quarter Moon in Taurus 16° 02/06: Moon ↠ Gemini 02/08: Moon ↠ Cancer; Waxing Gibbous Moon in Cancer 5° 02/10: Moon ↠ Leo 02/12: ⋆☽◯☾⋆. Full Moon in Leo 24°; Moon↠ Virgo 02/14: Mercury ↠ Pisces 02/15: Moon ↠ Libra 02/16: Waning Gibbous Moon in Libra 13°; Pallas ↠ Aquarius 02/17: Moon ↠ Scorpio 02/18: Sun ↠ Pisces 02/20: Moon ↠ Sagittarius; ◑ Last Quarter Moon in Sagittarius 2° 02/21: Juno ↠ Sagittarius 02/22: Moon ↠ Capricorn 02/23: Mars stations direct in Cancer 17°; Ceres ↠ Pisces 02/24: Waning Crescent Moon in Capricorn 21° 02/25: Moon ↠ Aquarius 02/27: Moon ↠ Pisces; 🌑 New Moon in Pisces 9°

[stardriveskickstart]

Parahuman Space

While Stardrives is complete, I'm not done with TTRPG writing yet. I've been working on the @para-imperium setting for over a decade now and I'm almost ready to launch a complete RPG based on the Cepheus System derived from Mongoose's Traveller (but more open).

Parahuman Space is a furry setting, yes, of the genetically modified variety. It covers over 2,000 years, but the RPG will be focused on the period after the collapse of the big interstellar empire. When newly independent planets and systems are busy scavenging the wreckage.

Players will primarily be salvage crews venturing into hazardous ruined spaceships and stations. Braving haywire security systems, leaks of corrosive chemicals, and the dreaded Kessler Syndrome to retrieve valuable technology.

In other words, dungeon delving.

At present I am about halfway done drafting the rulebook, drawn heavily from the Cepheus System Reference Document that can be read online here. Once I'm finished and I have interior artists lined up I was hoping to bring it to Kickstarter.

Below is the setting's history, as written for the rulebook.

Timeline:

Most calendars in Parahuman Space are oriented around the launch of the first parahuman-built starship as the start of the exodus from the clade’s system of origin, Sol. On the Georgian calendar the year 0 Post Exodus (PX) would be in the early 22nd century AD. So the Federation would be founded in the 32nd century AD and collapse in the 45th century, or roughly the year 4600 AD.

-40 Before Exodus: Creation of parahumans. -24 BX: Parahumans emancipated and corporations that enslaved them dissolved. -17 BX: Events of The Pride of Parahumans. 0 Post Exodus: First Seedship, the Traveller, launched. 4 PX: Pallas launches second seedship. 10 PX: Earth destroyed by relativistic projectile, origin unknown. 14 PX: Second Pallene seedship is caught by berserker probes that destroyed Sol.  Crew commit suicide first. 45 PX: Traveller lands on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, creatively named "Secland." 48 PX: Vestan ship lands on opposite hemisphere from the Traveller.

115 PX: Ship from Ceres arrives at Epsilon Eridani to find a lifeless system. Instead of terraforming the new corporate government opts to build artificial habitats in the asteroid belts and beneath the surfaces of planets.

124 PX: A second Vestan ship discovers a garden world orbiting Tau Ceti. The crew decide to eschew technology after printing enough colonists in fear of Sol’s Destroyers.

150 PX: Sleeper ship carrying 1500 humans from Sol arrives over Secland. After an abortive attempt at invasion the survivors gradually integrate into Pallene society. 500 PX: Cold war between nations on Secland ends with the completion of terraforming.  Biological weapons leave New Pallas the sole nation standing. 950 PX: New Pallas contacts Tau Ceti thanks to the newly developed conversion drive. Triggering political restructuring among the natives resulting in the kingdom of Schwarswelt under King Hideo Fink.

1060 PX: Stable wormholes large enough to move a spaceship through are produced and launched from Proxima Centauri to Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. 1100 PX: Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and Epsilon Eridani form the Federation.

1150 PX: Centauri Grand Mayor Selkd de Argentum assassinated by Cetan partisans and succeeded by his more aggressive sister Lirdrill.

1200 PX: The Federation centralizes power in the office of the Praetor, first held by Lirdrill de Argentum.

1205 PX: The Outworld memetic quarantine and contingency program is established, forcibly relocating ideological dissidents to frontier worlds with limited technology.

1500 PX: After extensive lobbying by Centauran merchant houses and the Eridani Company, Federation Senate votes to allow limited trade with Outworlds, which now compose roughly half of all colonized planets.

1846 PX: Kershkans, the first extant xenosophont species, discovered. 1903 PX: Contact established with Kershkans. 2300 PX: Federal Guard destroys Sol with strangelet bomb, inducing a nova. Evacuation of Core Worlds begins. 2304 PX: Wormhole gates at Alpha Centauri collapsed ahead of the nova's radiation. The capital cut off, the Federation quickly begins to fragment. 2345 PX: The Emissary-Governor of the Tiere System, wracked by tensions between earlier colonists and new refugees, disables all nanotech in the system in an attempt to reassert control. He is lynched by an angry mob within weeks. 2590 PX: The self-proclaimed Imperator Ronkal launches Project Paladin, sending ships with new reactionless drives and augmentation suites to neighboring systems. 2600 PX: A Ronkalli ship reaches the Tiere System, only for interplanetary debris to kill the entire crew. The ship AI forcibly augments a crew of scavengers who come looking.

The Origin of Species:

The first parahumans were engineered from a blend of human and animal genes and bioprinted in corporate labs in high Terran orbit. They were designed to fill roles in asteroid mining that were too complex for robots but too dangerous to risk human life for. It took less than a decade for rebellions and strikes to start.

Fortunately, the parahumans found many allies on Terra and after the revolutionaries on Ceres worked out a treaty to maintain the flow of resources back to Terra they were essentially left to themselves. With their new freedom came disagreements over how to govern themselves. The guilds on Vesta formed a form of anarcho-capitalist feudalism regulated by the cloning guild that held the early parahumans’ sole means of reproduction. But then a Vestan scientist, a silver fox named Argentum, discovered a simple gene therapy to remove the genetic sterility imposed by their creators and their followers formed a breakaway colony on Pallas.

The Vestan guilds could not tolerate this loss of control and war almost broke out between the two asteroids. Luckily they found an alternative means of proving the superiority of their respective systems of governance. A space race. Exploration of other star systems had been proposed many times but there had been little interest with the abundance of resources right there in Sol system. But with the new nanofabricators it was possible for even a small asteroid outpost to construct an Orion-style starship with a small crew and the fabricators to print out an entire new colony, colonists included.

They couldn’t have timed the launch better. Just ten years after the first starship, the Traveller,was launched from Pallas towards Alpha Centauri, it received a frantic message from Sol:

“This is an automated beacon broadcasting what may well be the last message ever sent by the human race. Five years ago, our homeworld, Terra was struck by a 50-ton projectile traveling at 90% of the speed of light. The debris took out most of our habitats in Earth’s orbit, a few million of us survived elsewhere in the solar system. Then the rest of the invasion force arrived. Machines, vast machines kilometers in length that home in on any sources of radio transmissions, and annihilate them. We pray they are not intelligent and are simply weapons fired by a xenophobic alien race. But they’ve almost completed their work, we estimate that there’s only a couple hundred of us left in the system. We’re sending this message in hopes that there is someone out there who can hear it and beware. This universe is more hostile than we thought. They attack radio transmitters, dismantle whatever devices you are listening to this on before they find you.”

In total, five starships were far enough out to heed this warning. The Traveller, a Vestan ship also headed for Alpha Centauri, a second Vestan ship on course for Tau Ceti, a craft launched from Ceres to Epsilon Eridani, and the largest but slowest ship, a sleeper ark from Terra to Alpha Centauri.

Alpha Centauri: Sol’s Nearest Neighbors

Around Alpha Centauri A the Traveller found a Terra-sized rocky planet that had long been scoured of life by stellar storms from the trinary stars nearby. It was determined that this little rock could be reanimated with comparatively little effort and the crew made immediate plans to colonize and terraform the planet which they named “SecLand” (the landing on Pallas being the first land).

Just three years after the Traveller’s arrival, they were followed by their Vestan rival. Considering the horror they’d experienced since Sol’s last transmission they decided to set their differences aside and work together on terraforming SecLand, albeit from opposite hemispheres. This detente was strained at times, but the first real threat to world peace didn’t come until 150 years PX, when the ark carrying the last of unaltered humanity arrived.

By the time the sleeper ark arrived SecLand had a population of several thousand, the ark carried a mere 1500 passengers but over half were soldiers who’d entered stasis with orders to make sure that the first exosolar foothold of humanity was human, not parahuman. Or at least that was the plan, when word of what happened to their homeworld got out there was a mutiny and the victors immediately surrendered to the parahuman colonists, with most passengers integrating into the Republic of New Pallas. These newcomers brought a wide range of skills and knowledge, living knowledge, to a planet whose inhabitants up until then had primarily only known life inside their half-built habitat structures. The humans emigrated nearly equally to both colonies, over the centuries they interbred with the parahumans, with the net result being that many SecLanders have less fur or their facial features are closer to human than many further colonies. Today pure-bred humans, and parahumans (excepting uplifts), are miniscule minorities on SecLand with only a couple million individuals. The average SecLander resembles a blend of at least half a dozen species of Terragen origin.

For centuries the two colonies lived in relative peace, New Pallas breeding like rabbits while the Vestans cloned new citizens in bulk. But when the terraforming of SecLand had reached the point where colonists could breathe the atmosphere tensions re-established themselves between the two old enemies. With terraforming nearing completion some wondered what use New Pallas could have for the Vestans, on both continents. To that end the Vestans began to covertly build weapons in their Arcologies while New Pallas shifted their orbital satellites slightly. It all came to a head when the Vestans concealed a lethal virus in food shipments sent from their farms to the cities of New Pallas, thousands died in the months that followed. By the time the New Pallas government realized what had been done every Vestan arcology had unveiled surface-to-orbit mass drivers that could shoot down their enemy’s satellites. Even then, many arcologies were leveled by orbital strikes. Then the land battles began. The cybernetically augmented citizen-soldiers of New Pallas facing off against the bioprinted legions of the Vestans. The fighting raged on for months, then abruptly, it ceased less than a year after the war had begun. You see, the Vestans had underestimated New Pallas’s skill with biotechnology, crafting a virus that could be deadly to all the diverse inhabitants of the Republic had been difficult, but a dirty little secret of many 21st century regimes were the techniques to engineer a virus that had disastrous effects when it interacted with a specific gene or genes. And the Society for the Preservation of Parahuman Species had only used a couple genotypes for their army, and even fewer for their ruling priest-scientists. Once the virus had been grown any Vestan unit that came into contact with the enemy was dead within a week, in a month the ruling class had been reduced to a few paranoid individuals who had sealed themselves in hermetic bunkers. Specialized by repeated cloning into an effective caste system, and their soldier castes suddenly extinct, the surviving Vestan arcologies found themselves helpless against New Pallas occupation forces.

The medical advances achieved fighting the bioweapons led to the development of leukosynths, symbiotic microbots that could fight off nearly all microbes and repair the body at an accelerated rate. Even fighting off the advances of aging. When this “immortality” was proven to the public they clamored for the government to subsidize their deployment to the masses. Within the century 90% of New Pallas’ population enjoyed the benefits of leukosynths.

Among this chaos a new power emerged in the Pallene cities and settlements. Families all over the planet started giving birth to silver fox kits, reminiscent of their colony’s nearly-deified founder, Argentum. Some religious leaders saw this as a sign and exalted these silver foxes, propelling many into high positions in politics. The cynical suggested that the parents had modified their children’s genes in-utero, but after the plagues many people were desperate and willing to believe anything. Most of them were actually descendants of Argentum’s, but their progeny numbered in the hundreds of thousands by that point anyways.

An unintentional side effect of this bit of social engineering was a renewed interest in their origins out in the depths of space. And despite the terrors they knew awaited them they couldn’t help but wonder if any other colony ships had made it…

Epsilon Eridani

Ceres, the largest asteroid in Sol’s asteroid belt, was the main off-world base of operations for the corporation that created the first parahumans. During the revolution parahumans took over the local branch offices and largely continued to operate along the same lines. Their participation in the exosolar space race was almost an afterthought, an attempt at remaining relevant compared to the other two major asteroid civilizations in Sol system.

Upon arrival in the Epsilon Eridani system they found even fewer viable prospects for terraforming than those in Alpha Centauri. Instead, they opted to construct enclosed habitats in the system’s asteroid belts and under the surface of the larger rocky planets. Like on Ceres the colonists retained the corporate style of government that had served their forebears fairly well.

After about a century of this arrangement dissatisfaction among the lower ranking employees spread towards the shareholding class. A bloody revolution followed, after which the revolutionaries distributed the seized shares in the Eridani Company equally among the employees, granting everyone a vote in company elections and a share of the profits. Roughly a generation later a group of managers started buying up shares from others.

The third such regime made contact with a probe from New Pallas, trade began almost immediately.

Tau Ceti

The second Vestan colony ship took over a century to reach its destination, the star Tau Ceti. Along the way two generations of crew were decanted from the ship’s bioprinters to replace their predecessors. While the final crew were genetically identical to those who had set out from Vesta their commitment to the ideology of the Society for the Preservation of Parahuman Species had wavered, and with the news of Terra’s destruction some suggested that perhaps the best way to avoid sharing that world’s fate would be to lose their advanced technology.

That would require them to give up cloning as a means of reproduction, however they were unwilling to allow reckless crossing of genelines so they added genetic markers to prevent different phenotypes from interbreeding. Fortunately, unlike the other colony ships they discovered a lush world that wasn’t too hostile to Terran life which they named Schwarzwelt after the dark colors of the local chlorophyll analogue. They then settled each “species” into different “clans” in different regions of the planet. The clans grew in population rapidly, bumping up against the borders designated at founding in less than a century. War broke out.

Clans rallied behind charismatic warrior-nobles and weaker clans swore oaths of fealty to stronger ones to save their own skins. These wars continued until contact with the first probe from the Centauri system, realizing that there was another civilization out there and that they were capable of interstellar travel the clan heads held a council to decide what to do about it. The majority ruled that they needed a single man to represent their world when the outsiders came in person, they elected King Hideo Fink of the feline clan as the official ruler of Tau Ceti.

Birth of the Federation

While the first manned starships with conversion drives were still traveling to their neighbors, scientists at a research base orbiting Proxima Centauri, the small red dwarf star that barely qualified as the third star of the Alpha Centauri system, made a breakthrough. Using a newly discovered form of exotic matter a wormhole could be pulled from the quantum foam of the universe and held open indefinitely. Once they successfully sent a laser through a pinprick-sized wormhole from Proxima to Secland, the New Pallas senate approved funding for the production of wormholes large enough to send materials through.

A very expensive experiment proved that wormholes larger in diameter than a micrometer could be catastrophically destabilized by proximity to large gravity wells. It was decided that no traversable wormhole could be placed closer to a star than the Oort Cloud, but even then the potential for shortening an interstellar voyage from decades to months was too exciting. Proxima Centauri was enclosed in a small Dyson sphere dedicated solely to producing the exotic matter for wormholes and just over a century after contact the first interstellar traversable wormhole between Proxima Centauri and Tau Ceti was ready, Epsilon Eridani followed suit. Commerce and communication between the three systems exploded, and conflict with them.

While interstellar war didn’t break out, there were many in both Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani who suspected that New Pallas intended to invade them through their wormholes. Before long both planetary governments were dealing with armed insurrections. New Pallas was all too glad to provide advanced weaponry and vehicles, especially on Schwarzwelt where the military was decentralized and entire clans or houses were rebelling. Eventually Pallene troops and warships were stationed in the two systems to defend Pallene interests.

Seeing tensions rise Grand Mayor Selkd de Argentum came up with an ingenious solution, an interstellar government composed of representatives from all three star systems, as well as any new systems that would be colonized in the future. That way, everyone could theoretically have a say in interstellar politics. While visiting Schwarzwelt in 1150 to promote his vision, Selkd was assassinated by a sniper.

Selkd was succeeded by his sister, Lirdrill, who ordered the sniper’s family estates leveled by orbital bombardment as an example to the others. The ruling houses of other clans that had rebelled were rounded up and stripped of their noble ranks, then imprisoned in stasis banks. She continued her brother’s vision of a united parahuman government, but centralized around Alpha Centauri and the office of the Praetor, which would be held by her house.

Wormholes took a lot of time and resources to set up while probes were reporting back dozens of exoplanets that were inhabitable or easily terraformed, so the senate on New Pallas had been debating whether to launch colony fleets before or after traversable wormholes arrived at the potential colonies. As Lirdrill solidified the Federation, she made an executive decision. Wormholes would be spaced anywhere from 20 to 50 light-years apart, depending on resources and stellar density, and the stars between them would be reachable only by ships traveling at 80% of the speed of light or slower. Since leukosynths and cryo-stasis had become mature technologies by then the decades of travel were deemed acceptable.

Even then, there was some trouble finding enough volunteers to fill the colony ships that were being built. After a few suggestions of using rebels as indentured labor the Memetic Quarantine and Contingency program was established. The thousands of rebels held in stasis were to be shipped off to marginally inhabitable “Outworlds” light-decades from the nearest wormhole, and to make sure they didn’t draw too much attention, without any technology more advanced than the most basic steam engines. It was hoped that eventually they’d become “civilized” and submit to the Federation, or die off.

But, there was a secondary purpose to the program. The machines that had destroyed Terra were still out there, and if the Destroyers were to notice the Federation growing under their noses, perhaps they’d overlook those small Outworlds without radio.

The Traders

With the vast distances between most inhabited systems trade opportunities were limited. Most star systems had enough raw materials locally that shipping them from another star without a wormhole was simply not cost-effective. While nanofabrication meant that most manufactured goods could be produced in a small warehouse, if not a garage. For the first few centuries of expansion the only goods that were worth shipping interstellar were in the form of digital data, and most of that could be handled by laser transmissions, and the occasional courier.

Just over two centuries after the Federation was established, a courier ship operated by a branch of House Argentum decided to stop off at an Outworld. The captain decided to land a shuttle near one city-state established by the unwilling colonists to see what they were up to.

The locals were wowed by the great flying machine and the crew, having forgotten their origins already. They offered tribute to the visiting immortals, foodstuffs, sculptures, and textiles. The crew decided to take some of the tributes with them, leaving some inconsequential trinkets of Federation technology which were quickly replaced by their on-board fabricators.

When the courier next made port at a Federation starbase they showed off the unique goods they’d acquired, many of which were purchased at exorbitant prices by bored oligarchs. The Outworld’s inhabitants were rapidly diverging culturally from their forebears, far faster than the leukosynth-using worlds of the Federation. Those simple couriers had found something valuable to the nearly post-scarcity Federation, novelty.

Many houses and companies commissioned their own Outworld trade freighters while the senate debated whether it was even legal to trade with the “barbarians.” Eventually it was determined that trade would be allowed; but no weapons, vehicles, communications, or nanotechnology were to be given to Outworlders. Small starships with industrial nanofabricators would set up shop over Outworlds for years at a time, fabbing trinkets made from space-age alloys and exchanging them for cloth made with alien fibers. Many of these traders became fabulously wealthy during the next few centuries as the Federation expanded outwards and established more and more Outworlds.

It was fun while it lasted.

The Return of the Destroyers

The Destroyers responsible for Terra’s demise had made occasional appearances in the next two millennia. Zeroing in on sources of radio transmissions with relativistic projectiles followed by hunter-seeker probes that would scour the surrounding system of life. But it seemed they hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care about the Federation at large.

Then astronomers in the Federal core noticed something. Sol, Terra’s sun, was dimming. A few disposable probes sent back horrific images, a Dyson sphere, and it was almost complete. With the energy of Sol the Destroyers could incinerate the core worlds at the speed of light! A secret panel of the senate met with the Praetor to decide what to do about this unthinkable prospect.

The Federal Guard’s fleets were assembled at Proxima Centauri and dispatched for Sol. Never before had Federation technology been tested against the Destroyers, and no one wanted to underestimate them, so the fleet was loaded with the most advanced weaponry they could muster.

It wasn’t enough.

Quantum ansible transmissions reported massive ships that maneuvered without visible reactions and accelerated to impossible speeds in seconds. The Federal Guard was slaughtered in short order, but before they died one ship managed to launch an experimental superweapon at Sol itself.

A strangelet bomb, filled with the same strange matter that converted baryonic matter into antimatter in conversion drives, with catalysts for self-replication. They spread across the star in a matter of days, triggering a series of detonations that tore the star and the incomplete Dyson sphere apart.

When word came that they had a potential nova carrying strangelets in their neighborhood the Federation’s elites abandoned the core worlds en masse. Fleeing through the wormholes at top speed. As the secret mission to Sol and its destructive results leaked everyone who could afford a ship followed suit, departing for distant worlds that they hoped could bring salvation.

Then, just before the nova’s wavefront reached Proxima, the wormhole network was collapsed to prevent it from spreading to the far colonies.

The Collapse

Every star system that had a direct link to the wormhole network found itself swarmed by refugees from the Core. The remnants of the Federal Guard struggled to maintain order as refugees clashed with natives. Many refugee fleets were forced to leave for other systems that were less sparsely populated, a few even attempted to invade Outworlds. Other fleets became nomads, passing through inhabited systems without slowing down and trading for or extorting supplies as they passed.

As unrest reached critical levels many governors activated failsafe programs embedded in every Federation citizen’s leukosynth implants, rendering the star system’s entire population mortal. Most such governors were torn apart by angry mobs. On other worlds the population voluntarily gave up advanced technology in hopes of hiding from the Destroyers.

Three hundred years later the dust has mostly settled. Few star systems are politically united, with individual planets and megastructures using everything from wooden carts to gravity-manipulating starships. The Federation is ancient history, and its technology treasure waiting to be discovered.

[theramseyloft]

Can you explain why most ferals have skinny black eyelids but captive birds have white or skin toned eyelids

That's pretty much natural selection at its finest.

I have seen a bit of research on the pattern of city pigeons and how it tends towards darker colors, and the general consensus is just that it does.

My observation of feral populations has led me to believe that it's a product of predation.

Pigeons' primary predators are accipiter hawks and falcons. (Raptor folks, please correct me if these should not be differentiated, or if my spelling is incorrect!)

Barred and barn owls will also hunt them at night.

The ten or so local feral populations I am familiar with forage primarily in strip mall and gas station parking lots, which are paved black.

Pigeons have four different pattern genes.

Blue Bar is the Rock Dove Wild type.

There are a few different subspecies of Columba livia.

This is C. livia targea.

C. livia palistinae

C. livia canariensis

Note fow fine featured the face of a wild Rock dove is compared to

a domestic feral from a continent that has never seen wild Rock Doves.

Normally, wild type coloration is dominant over everything else.

But in their domestication, Rock Doves were interbred a few times with Spectacled Pigeons:

From these, came both the Checker and T-check patterns, and very likely the Ash Red base color, all of which are dominant over the Rock Dove's blue bar.

They also got the genes for a big, thick cere around the eye.

Cheeto has the same t-pattern as the Spectacled pigeon above.

He's not from the local flocks.

Here are all the birds I've had who are:

Shadow: Blue Bar, expressing the darkening modifier called Dirty.

Coal and Orion: Checkers

Coal is expressing Dirty and Sooty.

Orion is expressing neither.

Panther: T-check, expressing Dirty, Sooty, and smoky

Fiona: Blue Bar

Licorice: T-check, Dirty, Smoky, and Sooty

Pierce: T-Check

Archie: T-check

Bridget: T-check

Pete: Blue Bar

Masnud: blue Bar

T-check is dominant over all four patterns.

Checker is recessive to t-check, but dominant over bar and barless.

Bar is recessive to t-check and checker, but dominant over barless.

Barless is recessive to everything.

So, on the one hand, the darkest pattern is dominant.

But

Ash Red, like lost homer Charlie here,

Is dominant over blue.

So why don't you see this dominant color absolutely everywhere in feral flocks like you do T-check and Checker?

My bet is because it's the easiest to pick out of a crowd and see against the blacktop.

Blue bar is easier to see than T-check or checker, but it's a recessive gene, so it can still crop up in a feral population even if all of the breeding adults are t-check or checker.

But Ash Red being dominant means that: once every bird expressing it visibly is picked off for being too easy to see, the gene is wiped completely out of the population.

The long and short of it is: the darker the feather pigment, the darker the skin pigment tends to be.

And darker feathers are harder for hawks to see over black top and harder for owls to see under a bridge or in an eve or overhang.

A predator will always take the easiest prey, so the prey animal that is harder to catch by any means or degree is the one that survives to raise offspring.

Pigeons in human care, despite being the same species, simply do not have the pressure of predation shaping their color, builds, or behavior.

Their care takers breeding program shapes them.

And humans tend to find contrasting colors and interesting shapes aesthetically pleasing.

[blue-sadie]

Missing Parts

This was a request but lost it so hopefully the requester sees this 😁

Cal Kestis x Bot Tinker Reader

Summary: sometimes the metal parts aren't that entertaining but adding a few things can make it better

Warning: none

Yn/3rd person pov

The music was loud so loud it could be heard from my station that was the same level as the prison "it's so fucking loud" I grumbled pulling out my ear plugs even those didn't work to block out the noise.

I heard beeping from behind me so I turned looking over my shoulder to the small droid on the table the guards brought him in a few hours ago damaging him the process "hey little guy" I murmured putting down my tools and slowly walking to him with my hands up.

"I'm not here to hurt you ok" I murmured and he beeped nervously as he slowly crept towards me to the edge of the table "I'm sorry about the guards their morons" I whispered picking up his broken pieces "dd please go get me some tools so I can patch up our friend here" I said.

My own little Droid flew out its station beeping happily as it flew between us and my desk passing me all the needed tools "come on little guy time to patch you up" I murmured and started humming to myself my tools drowning out the sound of the nearing prisoner.

Cal dropped down behind the unaware girl and his eyebrows rose in confusion as he watched her with his light saber raised he leaned to the side watching her work with his little companion "drop the tools" he spoke startling her causing her to fling the star screw driver at him but if landed a few feet in front of him.

"Shit you scared me" I squeaked moving my hands to my heart feeling it race "easy I'm just here for the droid" he murmured gesturing to bd-1 I glanced between the two "oh yeah here I was just repairing him and did a tiny upgrade on his antenna" I smiled gently picking up the small bot and bringing him to his owner.

The man frowned as he took him "why" he asked his voice low I nervously rubbed the back of my neck "it's kinda the only entertainment I get around here I fix or make new bots from the pieces I get" I looked around the room the small bots I've made peaking out their hiding spots.

"I'm cal" the man said sticking out his hand and I gently shook it "yn" I smiled and giggled as a few of my bots rolled to me and stopped by my feet "geez you've made a lot of them" he said kneeling down causing a few of them to hide behind me I let out a shakey breathe "I've made alot more but they get taken for gambling" I sighed making him look up at me with sorrow but I could see an idea popped into his head "how are you with shis".

-Time skip-

I felt sorry for the creatures we were killing yes its their nature but their death is only for fun, I shot one of those frog things making it crash into the wall, a group of my small bots tazered the group of scazz "what is this" sorc tormo boomed and I looked up at him confused intill a ship crashed into the area.

My smile widened as I recognized the ship "bloody greez" I murmured quickly gathering up my bots and following cal onto the ship "I will find you" sorc's voice faded as the door closed and the ship shook as it flew off "greez, cere" cal called as he rushed into the cock pit of the ship and I was slow to follow.

"I'm glad to see yo- yn" greez stopped mid sentence his eyes widening, "sup greez missed me" cal looked between the two of us surprised "glad to see you looking after my ship" I mused making him huff like a child "you own 50% of it not all of it" he muttered a few curse words turning his gaze back to flying.

"I'm cere now tell me what's this about you owning the ship" the lady spoke her eyes never leaving mine I laughed shaking my head "I won a lot of things from gambling that's also how I ended up in sorc's prison just on his good side" I paused "and that's how I met greez and he quickly lost all his belongings except the ship" I smiled.

Greez grumbled "wasn't my fault I was drunk" cere looked at him surprised "but why only 50%" cal asked crossing his arms his gaze on my I felt flustered under his gaze "I felt sorry for him" I laughed making cere laugh to "well I bet I can win it back" greez muttered putting the ship into hyper drive, cere lightly smacked the back of his head making him hiss

"so you can lose the rest of it I think not".

[breakfastteatime]

Another day, another long line outside a refuelling station.

Greez has been sharing his thoughts, feelings and beliefs regarding the Jedi Order for... well, for a while now. Cal is only half tuned in as he looks to the stars.

Then Greez starts a new soliloquy about Master Yaddle and Cal finds himself experimenting with new patience-exercises just to get through it.

"Yeah, that Master Yaddle sure was a legend. I heard she saved an entire planet from war by performing a tea ceremony that reminded everyone of their united past. She even baked the cakes herself." Greez sighs. "That's the kind of Jedi I wanna know more about."

Cal snorts. He can't hold it in any more. BD stares at him, beeping curiously. Cere sighs in that 'I'm actually really amused by this' way of hers. She has to know what's coming.

Poor Greez.

"What? You thought none of you knew how to cook?" Greez demands. "Show some respect to your elders who went beyond standard Jedi skills, Cal!"

"I have nothing but respect for Master Yaddle," Cal says, hand on his chest. "I promise."

"You got a funny way of showing it."

Cal chuckles. "I mean, she was my Grand Master, and Master Tapal told me so much about her. He was a Lasat, so you can imagine the height difference. He said one time she had to stand on his shoulders just to - "

Greez turns to him. Cal tries to keep his smile innocent, but there's a smirk breaking free.

"Wait. Just wait. Grand Master?"

"Yeah - my master's master."

Greez's fingers tap the controls. "This whole time you've heard me talking about her, and you never said you knew her?"

"Probably because I didn't. She died before I could ever meet her, but I know some stories." He knows a lot of stories. A lot a lot. Master Tapal could be quite chatty if you knew the right questions to ask.

Cal knew the right questions to ask.

"This whole time I've been talking about her, and you're, like, her grandkid or whatever Jedi call it?"

"Grand Padawan," Cal says. "Yup. And it's a true story, the tea ceremony thing. Master Tapal said he had to taste-test a few cakes just to make sure they were delicate enough."

Greez turns to Cere. "You knew this about him?" He jabs a finger in Cal's direction.

"Yes," Cere replies calmly.

Greez rounds on BD who immediately protests. He knew nothing!

"I'm an open book," Cal says, leaning back in the co-pilot's chair. "What do you wanna know?"

Their refuel bay assignment comes in before Greez can answer. Instead, he glares out the viewport. "I'm gonna make a list."

[scifiseries]

From the TV-Show "The Expanse". Ceres Station looks so Cyberpunk.

[lady-wyrd]

The Expanse 1x05

[theblissfulstars]

March 25th, 3AM EST, Full Moon Lunar Eclipse

The upcoming Full moon lunar eclipse is taking place March 25th 3am est.

Welcome eclipse season! This full moon is in the zodiac sign of Libra. With major themes centered around collective empowerment, financial reallocation and holy blessings.

Mars is stationed 1° in the zodiac sign of Pisces, denoting a time of dreaminess, confusion and hidden secret motives. With this energy piloting the Sun, there's a lot of spiritual understanding and epiphany going on this full moon. We're going to be having a lot more psychic understanding of our destinies And realities and may even experience spiritual visions, visitations or other happenings of a supernatural nature. Not only is the sun's ruler stationed in Pisces, the sun himself is loosely conjunct Neptune. Pay close attention to your dreams during this full moon as they actually will have messages for you.

On a world stage level, we can expect lots of moisture and condensation on and around this full moon, and for some it maybe is extreme as flooding.

All this spiritual energy is undergirded by Jupiter in Taurus. This denotes a major Reformation and revolution surrounding how we interact with financial institutions in their relation to religion, and religious institutions in their relation to the environment and our values. This moon is going to be calling many of us back to seeking faith in a tangible and real way. With Saturn transiting through Pisces, religion, spiritual institutions then faith have been in the wringer, however are going to be slightly alleviated during this time with harmonious aspects between Jupiter and Saturn.

Big wins for environmentalism on government reform with Ceres in Capricorn trine Jupiter in Taurus. This shows major changes in dietary issues, rectification of impoverishment and starvation and an influx of food and nourishment as well.

We're going to be clearly seeing our values collectively with Venus exalted conjunct Saturn and sextile Jupiter. This configuration is deeply positive and points to some uplifting and helpful changes surrounding religious issues, hierarchical systems and how they interact with our values. And on a personal level speak to the development of sweetness in our relationship with spirituality, are collective and our values. Some of us may be developing deeper relationships during this time, learning how to cherish solitude or even deepening our faith.

Venus has been conjunct Saturn, and despite Saturn being malefic, Venus and Saturn are allies, so this energy is actually refined and we're going to be craving love and romance that is mature and in alignment with our souls path.

Collectively, we can expect significant legal proceedings to take place during this lunar cycle with the Libra full moon and Pallas Athene Square Mars, Venus and Saturn, major instances of injustice are going to be brought to light which will be quickly rectified when she goes retrograde on the 30th of March. These injustices are surrounding places people and things deeply connected to religion and belief. Similarly, we can expect issues in the world of sports and athletics to come to light particularly water sports.

There's an overall positive energy to this eclipse cycle, it has a momentous and progressive quality that speaks to massive change. However, you can't have change without unrest. We can expect this full moon to come with societal unrest, protests and major issues with government polity and control. This feels like a victory for the collective and like change for the better.

Tarot Cards: 9 of cups, 6 of cups, 3 of cups, 6 of swords- Major themes of wish fulfillment, celebration, and overarching sweetness. We have the numbers 369, these numbers in some metaphysical circles in the west are considered master manifestation numbers. We're leaving things behind collectively and coming into a type of abundance after going through a very difficult time. However, this marks the beginning of a new difficult cycle but one that will yield rich fruit.

Workings for this full moon:

Money

Transformation

Love/lust

Domination

Justice work

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Ceres stations direct

Timeline (current events in bold)

Monday, November 28, 2022, 18:38 UT - transiting Ceres enters pre-retrograde shadow, 23°49’ Virgo

Sunday, December 18, 2022, 23:26 UT - transiting Ceres enters Libra

Friday, February 3, 2023, 19:16 UT - transiting Ceres stations retrograde, 6°58’ Libra

Thursday, March 23, 2023, 03:52 UT - transiting Ceres retrogrades back into Virgo

Saturday, May 6, 2023, 19:28 UT - transiting Ceres stations direct, 23°47’ Virgo

Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 11:22 UT - transiting Ceres re-enters Libra

Saturday, July 15, 2023, 21:10 UT - transiting Ceres exits post-retrograde shadow, 6°58’ Libra

Caution: unless Ceres plays a prominent role in your birth chart (closely in aspect to the Sun, Moon, and/or an angle), this probably won’t have much of an impact on you.

Just in time for the growing season, here in the northern hemisphere. We’re ready to finally make some progress, now that we have (hopefully) faced the issues we were ignoring, in Ceres’ areas:

Procreative sexuality; parenting, children, family

Child care, nurturing professions

Agriculture, growing cycles, food

Concern for animals

Most of the aspects Ceres makes, between now and her re-entry into Libra, are of the flowing variety:

Tuesday, May 9, Ceres/Virgo sextile Mars/Cancer

Monday, May 15, Ceres/Virgo trine Sun/Taurus

Thursday, June 1, Ceres/Virgo sextile Venus/Cancer

Friday, June 9, Ceres/Virgo trine Mercury/Taurus

Saturday, June 10, Ceres/Virgo opposite Neptune/Pisces

Tuesday, June 20, Ceres/Virgo trine Pluto Rx/Capricorn

That is all good news, easy times, except for the opposition to Neptune/Pisces. We’ve been dealing with that opposition with varying levels of intensity for several months now. All that glisters is not gold?!? Might be a few wistful choruses of “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try skmetimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” It will always be tricky to find the right balance between the real (Ceres) and the ideal (Neptune).

[seafoamreadings]

big things that are coming

jupiter square saturn - this is a semi rare type of square. exact on august 19 but give this one a fairly generous orb since both planets move fairly slowly. it is a tension of opposites; jupiter expands and saturn contracts. neither is in its home sign so neither is particularly stronger. you will simply have to find the right balances for yourself.

ceres direct - in late august, ceres moves to finish up her sojourn through earthy capricorn, which makes for a time of high abundance, especially if you are willing to put in the typical capricornian elbow grease. by september this influence starts to fade out, so make good use of it and put in sincere efforts.

mercury direct - just a couple days after ceres direct, but in leo. virgoans and leonic and gemini folks collectively breathe a sigh of relief. broadly things get easier especially where contracts, contact, and travel are concerned.

uranus retrograde - the month of september kicks off with this electric zap of a station. the overall retrograde feels like not much, but the days immediately surrounding the station can feel shocking, roiling, and tumultuous. the bright side is the upheaval comes with flashes of brilliant insight. note them down promptly because they won't stick around long.

pluto back into capricorn - the same day as uranus retrograde later sees pluto step back into capricorn, for the last time in any of our lifetimes. be prepared to experience the last death throes of the end of an era, especially on a global stage or wherever you have unresolved plutonic/capricorn issues. is it good or bad? it depends on what is needing to end. so be also prepared to grieve, and to celebrate, and yes you can do both simultaneously.

[akuna-fanclub]

The thing about Bode is, you don’t have to forgive him for what happened—but you can find yourself *understanding* why he did it. Ultimately, I think choosing the Empire felt like his only hope. His wife had been k*lled by an inquisitor, because of his force sensitivity, and now he was on the run, with a little kid by his side. By working for the enemy, Denvik promised him that Kata would be safe if he quote, “stayed useful”. I feel like at that point, he was so far into it, it was easier to keep doing his bidding, while knowing that Kata was safe.

The first time we see Bode, Cal, and Kata interact—Bode feels genuine here. He’s trying to explain to Cal why he did what he did, and Cal doesn’t get it. That’s why when Bode says that he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a father, I feel like that’s super important for the next game. Because Cal will essentially sort of have to play parent for Kata, and now he’ll see firsthand. Personally I think that line resonates a lot more than we realize, that whole scene in general. At the end, on Tanalorr, it’s clear that they would’ve been willing to Give Bode a Chance, but at that point we see a VERY different Bode than we saw back on the imperial station. I feel like this is the first time we actually see Bode as any sort of “villain” vs someone who was just struggling, and it’s interesting to see why it took so long, but I feel like it’s super telling.

Especially when in all the force echos, we see how much regret he has for what he’s doing to the Mantis crew. You can see it in the cutscene before Cordova dies too, when the imperials attack, Bode looks up, then closes his eyes as if indicating that he’s regretting what’s about to come. Especially because he worked so closely with Cordova for a bit. And he WAS a Jedi!!! I don’t think it’s so much that Bode is anti republic/Jedi, but mostly that he’s so beyond desperate to keep his daughter safe that he’s done some things that he regrets. And THAT is why he’s one of my alltime favorite characters. Like they built sooo much into this one character, and managed to pull it off flawlessly in ONE game??? Incredible. Ate and left no crumbs.

Also, we have to remember, in one of the force echos, he literally tells Denvik that he promised to share which inquisitor killed his wife, if he turned in Cere’s location. Denvik of course goes back on this, and Bode rightfully gets upset—but can’t do anything. There’s so much pain, and regret behind Bode’s character, and his voice actor and the entire crew just *chefs kiss*, nailed it.