#ftl radio

[ftl-radio]

Mr. Morale

[katakaluptastrophy]

The Nine Houses are obviously deliberately technologically limited. Aside from having FTL capable spaceships, the most advanced piece of technology that we see in the Houses is "an electric transmitter box, with headphones and a mic." It's not clear entirely what sort of device this is, but it apparently requires you to stick an antenna out the window.

On New Rho, Cam has a beeping, and therefore presumably digital watch. Nona has to remind her that's it's called a "watch", and not the House term, "clockwork", which rather suggests House timepieces are analog.

There's a projector box embedded in the BoE conference table, which loads an image like dial up internet because they are "using shortwave" - presumably shortwave radio, which can transmit pictures. As We Suffer apologises for the slowness of the image loading because of shortwave, that suggests that other methods of transmitting an image do exist, but that for whatever reason they're not using those. Perhaps they do normally have something akin to the internet, but this is down due to the conditions on New Rho, or being avoided due to House or inter-cell monitoring.

The audio of Juno Zeta's proof of life is on "a little piece of electronics, a fingernail-shaped thing with prongs", which sounds like some kind of drive.

We also see We Suffer in the impromptu command centre in the tunnels with "a headpiece and a flip-top computer", presumably being used for some kind of communicatons or planning.

And of course, there's Cam and Pal's recorder, which from the descriptions of it making squeaks and garbled noises sounds rather like it might contain a cassette tape.

A paramilitary group on a beseiged planet may not be the best evidence for the level of technology outside of the Houses, but if it is in any way indicative, non-House society doesn't seem to have non-space travel technology beyond things that would have been available in the early 00s.

[marlinspirkhall]

Humans sending out signal after signal, message after message, space probes, emails, photos, light shows, intergalactic fireworks, all in the hope that they're not alone: Please reply, please reply, please reply, ple–

Aliens, screeching across the universe in a brand new FTL ship: CAN YOU SHUT UP? WE GOT YOUR FIRST ONE THOUSAND MESSAGES, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW BIG SPACE IS?

Humans: oh my goooooosh, hi

Humans: Did you invent faster than light travel just for us? 🥺

Aliens: NO!!!

SETI: Radio message received.

Radio message: We are receiving you. We have decided to answer you in your own language, and–

SETI: New radio message received.

Aliens: Oh no.

Radio message: We have received your previous messages pertaining to life on Earth, and have included our own data packet about life on Big Tree in return. We named our planet before we learned it was only 30% arboreal. Thank you for the golden disc, it was extremely tasty. Haha. Just kidding.

SETI: Data packet downloaded. Decrypting...

SETI: New radio message received.

Radio message: As previously stated, we are receiving your messages and your gifts. We took a photo of our planet with our own photo-capture device, as we were unhappy with the one you provided.

SETI: Data packet update: Warning: Several terrabytes of information may be corrupted.

SETI: New radio message received.

Radio message: This is the Generation Ship Tree Hollow. My designation is Captain Root-Skygazer. Our people have instructed us to fly ahead and communicate with you when we reached the thirty-year marker, as these messages are likely to reach you faster. They request that you stop broadcasting messages with the subject line: 'Oh, how woeful it is to be alone in an uncaring universe (and other similar poems)' because it frightens the children and makes our scientists deeply existential. I, personally, am partial to episodes of M star A star S star H. It has been of great interest to learn historical facts about the longest Earth conflict of your common era. I miss my home, and I am saddened that I will never see yours. This ship has a self-sustaining ecosystem of plants native to our planet, and a crew manifest of one hundred and fifty-seven. The replacement generation currently numbers one hundred and seventeen.

Radio message: Hey, Ball Of Dirt, it's Big Tree again. Lose our number, would you? There must be some other semi-evolved space aemoba you can bother. (Several words untranslateable)

Aliens: Yeah, so your answering machine is going to be like that for a while–

Humans: What was that part about a Generation Ship?

Aliens: We were hoping you could tell us that, actually. We lost contact with them after the 200 year marker.

Radio message: This is the generation ship Tree Hollow. My designation is Captain Cradleroot. Captain Root-Skygazer was my grandfather. Inspired by the speeches of your contemporary leader, Ronald Reagan, I decided to restructure the existing system here which allowed crewmembers to eat as they required. Under this new system, we award tokens to whom we feel has done the most valuable work, and they can redistribute those to the hungry if they wish. But they do not. However, I believe that [...]

Humans:

Aliens:

Humans:

Aliens: This is all your fault, by the way.

[foone]

I'm surprised there's not more supernatural spaceship media. Like, your average little cargo ship is jumping around the outer rim trying to cut some time off their delivery route and they pick up a distress call, so they have to answer it.

(under a readmore cause this got a little longer than I expected)

They warp in to the approximate coordinates and there's a colony ship orbiting a gas giant, stuck in the shadow of it, basically frozen over. It's centuries old, but these sleeper ships from the pre-ftl era were built to last, so it's still broadcasting the SOS. It's not responding to radio, so they need to board it.

Normally this'd just involve turning off the SOS. The ship is clearly dead and not responding to any hails, the crew must be long gone and the reactor is just keeping the SOS going. But this is a sleeper ship, so it's possible there's just no one awake. Stuck in longsleep for god knows how many decades, waiting for someone to stumble on their signal...

So they board it, activate the computer, and it tells them that everyone is dead. The ship launched, and over the 358 years it's been traveling for, every single cryo chamber has been either opened or never had any lifesigns in it in the first place. The last event logged on the computer is 136 years ago, when the acting captain set the ship to orbit this gas giant, and turn on the distress signal. Since then, nothing.

But there's still power on the bridge. There may be something there. So they climb up the decks, passing the grim sight of endless rows of cryochambers lined up like tombstones, all showing red lights of lifesign failure. As they get closer to the bridge, the time of deaths get later. The ones on the first deck were close to the launch date, and the ones near the bridge are nearer to that 136 year ago deadline.

This wasn't a hardware failure. Something killed all these people, one by one, over 220 years.

They get to the bridge. The computers are all powered down, but the power management system is still active. Two of the decks still have their cryochambers powered, but it's the ones that were supposed to be empty. There's no lifesigns in them, so the little computer in the power diagnostic system has been recommending they be turned off to save on energy. Naturally it's been recommending that for three and a half centuries. One of the crew members almost absent-mindedly agrees to the prompt, and those cryochambers deactivate. They were empty anyway, right? The sound of humming from the bridge mostly fades away, as a few hundred cryopods on the deck below power down.

The boarding crew powers off the SOS beacon. They'll alert the authorities to the ship's location when they get to a port, surely someone wants to investigate what went wrong here, or at least do an archeological study. This place is beyond an antique at this point... Wait. What's that?

The power computer says there's still one active power draw, about 1.2 kilowatts, in the captain's quarters. That's too much for a personal computer, but just about right for a single cryo pod. Maybe the captain or someone is still alive? That pod isn't on the network, so they can't see the lifesigns from here.

They head over, and the bulkhead door is still cracked open, with a thick cable running in through the gap in the door. Whoever wired this up clearly didn't have time to correctly reroute the power systems, they just lugged a cryo pod in here and basically ran an extension cord to a nearby terminal.

They pry open the door, and there's a softly glowing cryo pod in the middle of the surprisingly spacious room. It makes some amount of sense, generally on these ships the captain would be the one who has to wake up and deal with any situations that arise, while the rest of the colonists are content to sleep until they reach their new home.

They look in the pod, and there's a man lying there. He's not the captain, though. They saw his photo on the bridge. This is someone else. Some one quite pale and gaunt. Maybe they were suffering malnutrition before they put themselves in the pod?

The pod is softly beeping. It's reactivating, apparently triggered when they opened the door. The pod shows no lifesigns, so it's not worth worrying about, the panel sliding over to reveal merely a well preserved corpse.

And then he smiles. "I'm so glad to see you! When we ran out of food we we're afraid we'd never see another human again. And even through those environment suits, I can tell you're so deliciously human." he licks his lips, and the boarding crew spots his prominent canines.

There's a noise halfway between a howl and a shriek from the floor below. The man in the cryopod leans up his head. "ahh, I see you've woken up my children as well. Marvelous. I hope you brought plenty of friends for us to snack on."

The head of the boarding party lifts her arm to call their ship, tell them to get out of there or drop a torpedo into the colony ship's reactor. Before she can bring it to her face to call, there's a flash of motion. Before she can even realize what's happening, the man(?) in the cryopod is up and holding her wrist away from her face.

As she cries out at the sudden pain, the other members of the boarding party spot movement down the hall. A lot of movement. A wall of thin pale people are running towards the captain's quarters, climbing over each other and pushing each other aside, like a pack of wild wolves who just smelled prey.

The boarding party steps back into the room and slams the emergency close. At least in here they only have to deal with one of those things.

The door hits the cable and bounces off with a loud alarm. It fully opens again, ready to let the hungry mass in.

So... Have you ever noticed how much a cryopod looks like a coffin?

[thedexcat]

VotV Speculation Megapost

(For posterity's sake, the latest major release is 0.8) (Also, buckle in. This post is a long one.) (Edit 9/20/24: Added Addendum 1) (Edit 10/14/24: Added Addendum 2) It should be extremely obvious, but spoilers ahead.

As we all know, Voices of the Void has a "story breadcrumbs" approach to its plot. Combine that with its alpha status, and we're left with a lack of hard answers. However, some pieces did seem to click into place. This is far from anything definitive, but here are some of the conclusions I've drawn. Let's start with everybody's favorite:

Part 1: The Arirals

god i want one to hold me like that

You know em. You love em. Like 90% of the fanart is about them. But the question is... what the hell are they doing here? Judging by the fact that they construct a campsite in the facility, they clearly expect to be here for a while. A common interpretation I hear from people is that the ones out in the facility are either political refugees, or just some sort of benign "tourist group". I've personally come to a different conclusion. Let's consider what they brought with them.

Exhibit A: The weapon (left)

The weapon they drop around Day 24 is no mere Star Trek phaser. If you drop it in the main building, pretty much EVERYTHING in the building is going to be sent flying from the resulting blast. Not only that, but the "human-wieldable" version that can be unlocked for the sandbox mode has one hell of a fire rate. Something tells me that there's no way in hell this thing is a civilian-grade weapon. And, as established in a previous post of mine, they're kitted out in full-body armored stealth suits.

Exhibit B: The stealth suit (Kerf dutifully remains there for scale)

These aren't tourists or runaways. They're goddamn Black Ops. But you're probably asking, "If that's what they are, then why do they have nothing better to do than to steal shrimp and prank you?" Don't worry, I'll get to that later. Eventually. Maybe.

For now, let's move on to a third thing of theirs: The letter to Kel.

Exhibit C: Esraniki's Letter (D-, see me after english class)

This is the letter left at the Ariral camp if you have maxxed reputation with them. There's one line in particular that's always stood out to me. "GET WE HOME YOU GET DEATH AVOID" So... why can't they go home? Let's review: A: They have perfectly functional spacecraft parked right behind you. Even if they were broken, surely some random Pre-FTL primitive wouldn't be able to help with a mechanical failure in their technology. Hell, they buzz you at the radio tower with one. So there seems to be nothing physically stopping them from leaving. B: They've come kitted out with some serious weapons and armor C: Something in the facility is drawing the attention of all manner of extraterrestrials (and ghosts and demons. are 'metaterrestrials' a good word for them?) So my take? They're monitoring something, waiting for an opportunity to act upon it. (In keeping with the Patch Note naming convention, I will be calling this unknown something "The Threat") Not only that, this 'opportunity' may only open up with the assistance of a human. But what could Dr. Kel possibly do that an Ariral couldn't? Well, I can think of one thing he can do better... Interface with human technology.

Exhibit D: Ariral Communique (quality: shit) Computer technology isn't some universal constant. You can't make a program and expect it to magically run on alien technology with an unknown architecture. This ain't Independence Day. The fact that the Arirals barely managed to send a heavily-garbled message to Kel's computer, quite frankly, speaks of an extreme amount of effort on their part. And it was all just to say the word "OUTSIDE".

If The Threat has some ties to human technology, then perhaps Kel actually could be more qualified to deal with it than the Ariral Black Ops. Hmm... An unknown threat with ties to human technology. Could it possibly involve...

Part 2: The Incredibly Suspicious Bunker

"I left a 'Do not enter' note on the floor. That'll stop people from investigating!" This damn thing is quite obviously, as TVtropes would put it, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It is my firm belief that this is what the Arirals were sent to monitor, and where The Threat can be found. But we can't really get much further in than a few doors. So... what's in there? An easy assumption to make is that it's some sort of fallout/storm shelter. But something nearby might tell a different story...

Exhibit E: *squints* ...Liberty Prime? If you take a metal detector over to the bunker entrance, you'll quickly discover a buried drive nearby. The image you just saw is its contents. It's clear that something is being depicted here. What exactly it is, well, that's hard to say. but if you look at that teeny tiny thing at the top, you'll see something that looks like the Alpha base and its radio tower

oh god we're getting into crusty duende video territory now

What this says to me is that there is a colossal something underneath the base. Some sort of mega-facility? Unnatural cave formations? Something else entirely? Or I could be looking at it entirely wrong. But the point is, it's very likely that something extremely expansive is down there.

What if we could just take a peek a liiiittle bit further in? Well, there is ONE way...

Exhibit F: The Least Cursed Elevator in Horror Fiction

Roughly around 3:33 each night, there is a chance that a camera inside the bunker will become active. It's monitoring what appears to be a heavy-duty elevator coated in blood. An elevator like this would also indicate something buried deep underneath the base. Say, this elevator seems familiar...

Exhibit G: Monique Santificer's Extremely Ominous Foreshadowing

...Huh. I'm sure that only means good things. So we have a Hellivator and evidence that there's some place that you'd need a Hellivator to get to. Are there any other clues around? Well, there's that handy instruction book on robotics. You can make your own little friend!

POV: You're 5'11 and she's 6'0 And... Oh! looking back at that camera, it looks like someone else made their... their own... friend...

Exhibit H: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- ...I don't think they followed the instructions to the letter. So it seems the people in the bunker were working on combining robots and, er, 'biomass'. I don't think our meaty friend here is The Threat itself, but I do believe that it is some aspect of it, or at least a result of it. And whatever The Threat is, it seems to be "leaking" out of the bunker. After all, this toothy bot here seems to have little siblings burrowing out from underground!

Exhibit I: should start running Kerfus. Kerfur. Whatever name they have, they love you! Such a shame that the flesh inhabiting their chassis does not.

they seriously recalled the ++ models over a little thing like this, smh Something deep underground, cursed flesh, and occult sigils. Hmm. Things would tie together neatly if there were, say, some sort of demon around associated with flesh and dark depths.

Part 3: Furfur (and conclusions)

"I WATCH YOU SHIT AT NIGHT" The Great Earl of Hell and raw flesh afficianato, it's Furfur! Demonology refers to him as a liar, but also a teacher of secrets. And he seems to really really like flesh. Not bones, though. He's always leaving those behind.

They say that if you burn an offering of flesh at his altar, he'll give you a marketable Furfur plushie!

The children who survived loved them! Interestingly, there's a certain location connected to Furfur: The bottom of the well. If you pass out at the bottom of the well, you will end up in a (dream of a?) mysterious structure.

Exhibit J: all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well

A few things of note in this place: -More demonic sigils -The only 'exit' is a tunnel leading upward with a broken ladder. And even if you could reach up there, Furfur's giant skull-face is blocking the way. -A unique knife, which when examined in the inventory, says that it was found "deep underground".

How very interesting that this flesh-loving demon has his own little place down in the depths of the earth. And you say the bunker reaching downwards has been spawning horrific robot-flesh amalgamations? Robots that are specifically of human design?

Well then. So here's what I think is going down:

no i'm not crazy it's invisible alien catgirls versus demon cyborgs you weren't listening were you?

-Some scientists from before did a Very Bad Thing in the bunker depths. If I had to venture a guess, it's that they bargained with Furfur for secrets of the flesh, perhaps in the pursuit of cybernetics, biocomputers, or somesuch. This resulted in the Very Bad Thing happening, thus creating The Threat. -The Threat was contained to some extent, but is starting to noticeably leak out. It is also severe enough to have drawn extraterrestrial attention. -The Arirals have sent a squad to monitor the situation and act if necessary. Seeing as there's been no urgent need to act as of yet, they are bored out of their skulls and taking it out on you. -The fact that the bunker hasn't been blown up by catgirl black ops already says to me that the situation down there is delicate, and a 'guns-blazing' approach would be inadvisable. Not only that, but The Threat seems to be tied to technology they have little knowledge of. They would most likely need outside assistance if they want a 'clean' resolution to the problem. -And wouldn't you know it? Right there in the facility is some nerdy, crusty, half-crazed twink that seems to be very proficient in handling human technology. How very convenient.

"average person eats 3 roaches a year" factoid actually just statistical error. Dr. Kel, who-

That's how I think this ties together, personally. Of course, there's always unaccounted for 'loose ends' that may or may not be tied to the Bunker Conspiracy (the rozital pit in particular has been bugging me with its vagueness). Plus there's always the chance that I misinterpreted things like a dumbass. There were a few other smaller things I wanted to cover, but my fingers hurt from typing, and my ability to hyperfixate has its limits. And sorry if the screengrabs are a bit mismatched, I've already spent hours on this post without having to get screenshots from the game myself. If anyone actually read through this monstrosity of a post, congratulations! If you're as deeply brainrotted as I am, feel free to point out the reasons I'm dumb and wrong :)

Addendum 1: Meta Aspects

no, not this. wrong place. wrong time.

Every now and then I hear talk of lore clarifications in Discord servers, Google Docs, etc. Will I be covering these?

(source) The reason? I want to give my impressions based purely on the work as published. Death of the Author and whatnot. The furthest I'll reach 'outside' the games are those ambiguous little teasers on YouTube, which you don't have to be in any 'specific server' or anything to see.

haha what if funni meme robot was irreversibly corrupted by the horrors?

Think of it as me giving a form of feedback on how the game is presented as an isolated work. Anyway, I'll be posting another Addendum later, connecting more demon stuff to the bunker. Fun! One thing I intend to investigate between then and now is a rumor of a very poorly documented... item interaction. As a little preview, consider this note.

It seems, in my pursuit of knowledge regarding a mysterious bunker in an incomplete videogame story, I find myself investigating a skeletal entity of ambiguous origin described as having a single glowing eye. God. Fucking. Dammit. Every time with this shit.

This always seems to happen whenever the protagonist is bullied by tall monstergirls

Addendum 2: Classified

Progress on my investigation has been slow due to a combination of poor RNG and real-life stuff. Fun fact: I've never encountered the fossilhound in my many months of playing, and it looks like that won't change anytime soon!

I'll get you one day, ya boney bastard. In the meantime, it seems that someone has leaked classified pokemon data communications from our employers...

And just who do we encounter within the first few weeks?

Our classified documents are their vacation photos

So it seems that at the very least, our employers seem to be aware of the Arirals. So to what end do they want to draw them out? And why would the Arirals show any particular interest in a human presence in this facility specifically?

They clearly seem to be hiding their presence from the world at large with their cloaking ships and whatnot, but they seem almost eager to grab the attention of anyone working at this particular site.

And, as everyone already knows, Arirals are certified Goobers. They form like 3/5ths of the Counsel of Goobers*. The ones we encounter at the very least are very much not what our employers expect to kill us. So our employers are also aware of the existence of some other threat, possibly even THE Threat. *the remaining members are Kerfuses and Dinguses

Truly an incomprehensible menace from beyond the stars. (source)

Personally, I feel like this all feeds back into my previous thoughts. There is clearly a Threat at this location, and the Arirals probably believe that they may need human assistance to do something here. Or maybe I'm just biased towards whatever random thoughts got cooked up in my head.

Anyway, hopefully next time I'll be back with reports of yanking the lifecrystal out from the Fossilhound's head and shoving it up its ass. I am so, SO sick of trying to get that thing to show up.

[vintagegeekculture]

A History of Faster than Light Communications

One of the technologies taken for granted in science fiction and space opera is faster than light communication...or as scifi fans call it, an ansible. In reality, most communications are limited by the speed of light, so it takes a delay of a few minutes to send and receive messages even in a solar system. As 2001 pointed out, it would take 6 hours and back for a radio message to reach Saturn. A traditional radio signal sent to the closest star would take four years to arrive.

Isaac Asimov coined the term “ultrawave” or “hyperwave communications” in his Foundation novels in the 1950s, to refer to signals that propagate along “subspace,” a lower level dimension where travel is quicker. Only information can travel in subspace, but people and objects can’t. Jack Williamson mentioned “rhodomagnetic waves” in a few of his scifi stories, which function as a kind of intergalactic communicator, but also are the basis for a death ray, meaning in his universe, any ftl communication device can be rewired with a minimum of effort by a boffin into a lethal death ray. 

In the 70s, Ursula K. le Guin popularized the term “Ansible” for this kind of communicator, instantly able to communicate regardless of distance. It’s this term that seemed to stick among fans and scifi culture, and most people with this device in their stories call it an “ansible” in homage to le Guin. Ansible communicators are just a part of scifi now, generic scifi worldbuilding, along with hyperspace travel, neuronic whips, space marines, and wisecracking robots. Many scifi writers have ansibles in their stories who are completely unaware of who originally coined the term and where. 

For most scifi writers, instant FTL communication is just a plot convenience to move the story along. Even Asimov, who made overthinking things his M.O., didn’t spend any extra time thinking about it. But James Blish however, put a lot of energy into figuring out how a faster than light or instant communicator would actually work....and he came to the conclusion it would be a technology with enormous philosophical, and indeed, practically religious implications.

Here is what I mean by that. In his story “Beep” in 1954, James Blish came up with the idea of a Dirac Communicator, which is the usual instant, no delay ansible. But Blish reasoned that the only way instant faster than light communications could actually work without any delay is by sending a signal into a null-dimension without time, so every single message ever sent (past, present, future) is sent simultaneously in a timeless null point, with machines only able to decode the time-sealed relevant messages they receive. 

If you stop and consider this, if a technology worked this way, it means that we live in a completely deterministic universe where all our decisions are made in advance. And as Blish was intelligent (and wiseassed) enough to point out in his 1954 story, it means that if faster than light communications actually work in the universe, that free will is an illusion, and that we actually do not have it. The universe is a watch proceeding on a predetermined pattern set at the moment of creation. An interesting conclusion to draw, all from a technology scifi takes for granted and sit in the background. 

[flight-of-the-sacred-eagle]

Fuck it. New Invader Zim AU

Penpal AU

So this AU, the Irken Empire isn’t… well. The empire we know. It’s far more primitive (more advanced they humans and have colonized parts of their own solar system but haven’t invented ftl travel).

An older Dib and Zim are both kinda outcasts in their respective societies. Zim is… well. He’s Zim. And kinda obsessed with trying to find alien life. Dib is pretty much the same thing. So the pair spend their time trying to find evidence of life. This leads to them using radios, constantly trying to make a call to the universe.

And eventually, Zim picks up Dib’s transmission. And returns it.

There’s a month delay on Zim’s side, but eventually Dib gets the return message and the pair are kinda freaking out. Because holy shit they actually found alien life. Except no one cares (irkens) or don’t believe them (humans)

After about a year of back and forths, Zim eventually manages to create an instant transmission system and sends Dib the blueprints. And it works.

About four years go by with them talking more and more and pretty much falling in love. And Zim, being Zim, decides this isn’t enough. If no one cares, he’ll do everything himself. This leads to him, with Dib’s help, creating basically Skype between the too.

And this is… fine. For a few years, but by this point they really see each other as their only friends and Zim realizes he’s head over heels. So he decides, screw it. He’s making FTL travel. The empire had toyed with it for a bit before giving up, but Zim is determines.

And a decade later, he’s figured it out. So, without telling Dib (or really anyone else) he fucking dips and heads to Earth.

And there’s this really cute reunion/first meeting thing. Idk. I thought it’d be cute

[klikandtuna]

Hey :)

Random question: are there any existing songs that bring FTL!Crowley to your mind? You know, the way Time Stand Still makes you think of the SCB boys? Or, alternatively, any songs that you had in mind / were listening to when you wrote FTL!Crowley? Or any that you feel resemble his music (not necessarily Pondwater)?

Putting this in your asks instead of DMs bc I thought some other people might be curious as well :D

Ooooooh this is an excellent question…without a definitive answer 😆 I’ve honestly never thought about it before!

In my head/heart, FTL-Crowley’s music is a mishmash of most of what I was into back in high school and college.

— Rush, absolutely, for their quirkiness, fantasy-centered themes and imagery, and an absolutely KILLER guitar (think “Distant Early Warning,” “Mystic Rhythms,” and obviously “Time Stand Still”);

— Kansas, for their huge power ballads, more fantasy stuff, and odd time signatures (think “The Pinnacle,” “Icarus II,” “The Wall” — I actually named one FTL chapter after this song!);

— Springsteen, for his storytelling (“Thunder Road,” “Radio Nowhere”);

— Led Zeppelin for their blues roots, more fantasy stuff, and another killer guitar, and sheer POWER (“The Rain Song,” “The Battle of Evermore”)

Iiiiii don’t listen to much current music, so I’m afraid all the comments asking if FTL-Crowley is Hozier are lost on me 😅 I will say that while Crowley loves to write about his favorite things, Pondwater is by far his most autobiographical song; most of them are glorious tangents about anything that catches his internal eye with a sparkle of silver.

THANK YOU for the ask, I love discussions like this!! 💛💛

[inbabylontheywept]

Hold Your Breath and Burn

Seventeen hours.

Seventeen hours of sitting in his ruined craft, waiting for the carrier to send someone out to save his sorry ass. Seventeen hours of praying that he’d get out before the waste heat from his scrammed piece of shit reactor officially crossed the line from wring-out-your-underwear to meat-falls-off-the-bone. Seventeen hours of praying he was gonna make it.

And now with one blip of radio noise he knew he was gonna die.

Honestly, it was almost a relief.

He punched in a message through the QRAM system.

Hunter-Seeker nearby. Just caught an IFF ping. Being used as bait. Abort rescue.

A drop of sweat rolled down his nose as he waited for a response. He considered letting it drop to the floor. No need to draw this out any more than he already had.

The computer chirped at him. He almost hadn’t expected a response. Any time spent on him would essentially be wasted.

It was oddly comforting to know that they were willing to waste time on a dead man. Helped him feel less like a casualty on a spreadsheet. There was something human about knowing that someone would waste time on you.

He checked the message.

I’m sorry.

He shrugged. What else could be said? He was sorry too. Dying sucked. He’d bitched a lot about living, but honestly, it was starting to look like a pretty great deal.

He cut his self-pity short before it could even grow roots.

He leaned over the QRAM, suddenly tired.

Now what?

There was a longer pause. No sweat dribbled down his nose. He was glad for the reprieve, even if he knew what it signaled.

Hunt-Seekers are dangerous threats.

An obvious statement. Borderline cagey. Something about it made his hackles rise. He waited to see if another message would arrive.

One did.

Would you be willing to make one more sacrifice for mankind?

Ah.

He mulled the question over. Considered every reason he should say no. Considered every way to say no.

Will it hurt?

There was no pause in the response to this. The immediacy was frightening. He’d hoped there’d be something couched in there, but the straightforwardness moved him.

Yes.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. He wasn’t dead yet.

So be it.

---

The plan was surprisingly simple. Completely unsurvivable, but simple.

First, he would vent the cabin. He had an emergency O2 tank that would last for approximately three minutes. The safest speed that the cabin could be vented at was a little under fifteen minutes. That wasn’t possible, so they’d have to rush the job and see how he made it. The goal was to take exactly as long as the tank would last, and then hold his breath for the last part, because it would, in theory, be very short.

Step two would be overriding the reactor scram. The boric acid would be pumped directly into space, and the reactor would flair up to 1200 F. That was actually the primary reason they needed to vent the atmosphere first: To cool the interior cabin enough that the reactor wouldn’t simply incinerate him in the first five seconds.

Lastly, he would activate a mini-jump. If he was lucky, the Hunter-Seeker would only detect the exit blast, and warp to the end of his FTL cone. It would then drift through space, lost and confused, for at least several seconds. He’d use those last few moments to consider his life up to that point. Then, the reactor would run out of built up xenon.

The rest would be physics.

Are you ready?

The operator's final message hung in the air. Was he ready? Could anyone be ready for this?

Yes.

Pull the trigger. I'm gonna be the first person in two-hundred years to give Oppenheimer a hug on my first day in hell.

---

Another blossom of crimson splattered across his vision as the pressure gauge crept below zero point two atmospheres. He had no idea what the depressurization was doing to his body, but it hurt like hell. The vac-suit was clinging to his body like saran wrap now, damn near tight enough to break a rib, and it still wasn’t done.

He snuck another peek at the pressure gauge.

Zero point zero five.

He went to suck another shaky breath from the tank and found nothing left. His vision was already fading in at the corners. This was even harder than he’d thought.

He stared at the gauge and willed the last bit of air away.

Zero.

Finally.

He leaned across the console and hit the override on the reactor core.

---

The reactor did not roar to life. There was no air to carry the sound, no messenger in this void save light. And the message that light carried was not thunder, no roaring in the canyons, but heat and pain. The energy didn’t flow out of the reactor like it did in air, it was an immediate, searing, flash of agony.

He couldn’t tell if the vacsuit was melting into his skin, or if his skin was melting into the suit, but he could feel a dreadful wetness across his back, the one part of his body exposed to the war god slinging him through space. He barely noticed the sensation of warping, barely noticed the first hesitant blip that appeared on his LADAR screen.

But barely was still enough.

It worked. The stupid son-of-a-bitch had fallen for it. The Hunter-Seeker set a destination at the end of his warp cone and jumped blind. It was catastrophically lazy, and even as his lungs burned from lack of air, even as his back burned with the blowtorch heat of a dying reactor, he knew that he’d won. There was nothing left to do now but wait.

He looked through the display that pretended to be a window to the outside. Imagined the stars, beautiful and gleaming, suspended over the vastness of space. He saw the faint white shine of the reactor reflected across that glossy screen, felt that half numb pain of fire across his entire back, and imagined that last bit of xenon trapped inside, fading away, lost in the sea of neutrons. Fading, fading… gone.

He could almost swear that the flash of light began right there, right as he imagined it would. He died then, ripped apart on a level that few can scarcely imagine, but for one brief moment before death took him, his underwear was dry in the same elegantly understated sense that space is cold and stars are warm. Four hundred kilograms of highly enriched uranium going supercritical is a magical thing.

The Hunter-Seeker never had its moment to look death in the face. All it knew was that in the space where a carrier should have been, it was alone. And then it too was gone. In the space where it used to be, where it had been, there was little more than echoes of fire and heat.

And then those too faded to black.

[elbiotipo]

Notes on technology in Campoestela:

Most spaceships are single-stage-to-orbit. They have rather standard jet engines to lift off from the ground like a standard plane.

To get into orbit, they use a rocket engine that uses a solid fuel made of a HIGHLY combustible (yet stable) carbon-nitrogen compound which allows a better fuel than anything previous. This was first discovered by Iranian scientists who named it "Nafta".

(sí, Beto tiene que estacionar su camión espacial para cargar nafta)

Nafta was a big discovery on its time, allowing cheap SSTO rockets. Nowadays it's produced in many worlds and widely available. It also has uses as weaponry, but it's not that efficient.

Nafta is used for lift-off and orbital burns. For manuevering in space, there are small jets on the nose and tail of spaceships, similar to the Space Shuttle.

Spaceship piloting is still not an easy task, but it's comparable to being a jet pilot, about 4 or 5 years to master. Hard, but something on the reach of many people. People from the generation ship clans are a bit more used to it and often represent an outsized part of space pilots, but there's always many wellers (from down the gravity well) who get their licenses too.

The hardest thing is always landing. Especially given all the different gravities, atmospheres, orbits and such you have to learn in each different case, even with all the automation in the world. Many spacers feel confident sticking to one or at most two or three planets they know.

Pilots that only do shuttle or cargo runs in the same star system or planet are called "Starters", because they go around the same star. It's rude, but many spacers do it.

FTL travel is another thing. FTL travel is done using a ring-like structure that projects a bubble around the ship and takes it to a (completely made-up for the setting) dimension called the Aether. The Aether is one of the meta-dimensions (there might be more) that uphold reality. Conveniently, you can use it as a shortcut to travel between stars, which project "shadows" on the Aether.

The Aether has its own navigation, with currents and whirpools and areas of thick dark matter (which, for cinematic purposes, actually look like bright nebulae) There are routes that are easier to travel and navigate, and these are where the most visited worlds are. Even stars that are close in real space might be very hard to get in Aetheric space, so there's routes that can take you all over the galaxy in a week, while many other places are out of reach.

Navigating the Aether is very similar to flying a plane through a cloudy sky. Some spacer says it's even easier than flying in real space.

Staying on the aether depends on how much you can keep the fields upholding your "bubble". This depends on the energy of your ship. Big ships can travel all over the galaxy but they have enormous energy consumption requirements.

Smaller ships (such as Beto's Mastropiero) dock with a ring-like structure that allows them to make short jumps. The average jump in an explored route is about 12-48 hours, so it's much like aircraft flights.

Exploring new aetheric routes is something that is very romanticized but in reality is a tedious process of jumping, cataloguing new systems (many of them empty and useful only as refuelling stations), seeing where the streams go and end, how they change, and more.

There is no FTL radio or live communication. There is a kind of aetheric radar that allows you to see incoming ships and do some morse-like communication, but it's not very efficient, there is no such thing as a galactic internet (though it's said ancient civilizations had one)

Aether travel engines require very sophisticated manufacturing and materials, which were hard for humans to develop. This was long only in the hands of governments and corporations, but after the Machine War, accessible aether starships hit the civilian market.

Smaller ships are still used by governments (more like loose "leagues") to do what big ships can't: supply satellites and equipment to remote bases, small-scale transport of engineers, researchers, aether "meteorology" and exploration, etc. This is very much like bush planes in remote regions or the role of Aeroflot in developing the USSR.

While humans in the setting, like most species, are composed of many different leagues, cultures and organizations, their technology is remarkably consistent. This is because cheap and reliable spaceflight depends on very reliable standarization. Some of the spaceship parts used six centuries after Gagarin are still the same used in the Soyuz. The ISO is perhaps one of the most enduring legacies of human civilization, along with FIFA.

[ftl-radio]

[paradoxcase]

John 19:18

THE TOWER HAS R

Since normal humans can't do anything like this anyway and it doesn't seem like John has at this point in the story actually consumed anyone's soul, I guess by "the old difficult way" he's referring to his power level from before that happened, during the part of the story that we're reading now?

This is a piece of land that John just raised from the bottom of the ocean, but it already has a building and a car on it. I guess some flooding happened when the world ended? Also, I think that car is probably all dead, insert Miracle Max reference here

So, it's not like surprising or a revelation at this point, but here is positive evidence that a body can be physically alive and even healthy, but if it doesn't have a soul in it, it's not really living. I think if BOE had observed Gideon's body to be physically alive in some way but lacking a soul they would have described it differently; Gideon's body probably has some big holes in it because of the fence at this point, or at least it probably did at the time that BOE had it, so it wouldn't have been like Ulysses and Titania here, but it's not clear what the extent of Gideon's immortality is, exactly, if it means inconvenient holes get repaired or if she can be alive in spite of inconvenient holes, or what

Also, here we have that true resurrection doesn't just involve the physical act of repairing someone's body and starting it up again in some way, there has to be some element of retrieving a soul, presumably from the River

So whatever this is, I don't think anyone is using it 10,000 years later. The Nine Houses uses this stele system, which seems to be related to radio somehow, but you can't use it to go somewhere that's far away from a stele and they do know where they wind up. And BOE went out of their way to steal a ship with a stele just so they could use FTL travel, so they obviously don't have another means. I wonder what happened with this idea that caused it to be abandoned? Like, obviously the trillionaires who went off in their FTL ships did survive and I guess maybe became some of these other civilizations that John's fighting against, so it must have at least worked a little bit. But the stuff about "oscillating to a prearranged spectrum" makes me wonder if it isn't actually related to the steles at all? Or Augustine was right and there was no FTL at all

Also, I wonder if John does understand the math now after 10,000 years

This seems like such a weird argument to make? Like, I'm not sure if this interaction is happening in public or not. If it's a public thing, I can see them being like, this guy killed a bunch of poor innocent cows, how can we trust him??? but it sounds like a lot of this was private negotiations between John and the trillionaires, I think in those circumstances they wouldn't be talking about the poor innocent cows and would instead be saying things about how it's not a good investment, I don't think any trillionaires are going to be pretending to care about cows for just John's sake. And I mean, one of those guys is probably Elon Musk, right, can you see Elon Musk making this argument to anyone in any context? I really cannot

So again, it's sort of framed as being about the Earth, specifically, and not about the people and animals living on it... although, if this is Alecto's memory of John telling this story to her maybe he is phrasing everything that way for her benefit? Like obviously the greater injustice was leaving all of the people behind. The only real difference between what the trillionaires did and what John was planning to do was in how many people escaped, right? Like, John wasn't out there fighting oil companies and pollution either. Maybe when someone takes the ships you were planning to use to leave instead it's just easier to say "you abandoned the Earth, you cowards!" instead of "you left us behind, you bastards!" because then it's easier to claim the moral high ground, but I think they already could do that, since they were planning to take everyone and that was the whole point?

[pari-treeminders]

Hello once again friends, some interesting updates today...

The latest reports from our dig site have come in, our teams have reported that the ruins have become engulfed in a strange purple fog, seeping out of the walls and floors, at first this oddity was merely a foot note but it rapidly started spreading to the rest of the planet. Our researches are baffled as attempts to analyse it are not bearing any fruit. We hope the arrival of our friends in the @elepharchy and the @darexirepublic can be of help.

Following up on our bandit hunt, our peace keepers have been able to track faint FTL disruptions to another system, there they have found a large ocean world, home to a small Pre FTL civilisation. Our security forces have begun establishing a small out post to watch over this humble civilisation less the bandit menace seek to plunder them unabated.

And lastly, our northern most outpost has report yet another increase in raiding activity, Several attempted raids have been thwarted thus far but barely. If this keeps up i fear a more proactive approach will be required of us.

[galaxy-jessie]

Summary of the 45 minute long interview with Todd regarding starfield:

No fishing

Procedurally generated content includes pre-built locations that will be generated when you land. An abandoned station for example will be generated only after you land on a planet, but the layout of that station is hand crafted. So expect 500+ identical dungeons

Such hand crafted content will not spawn as often, to give planets the feeling of desolation, to make you think you're the first person to ever land there and all you could really to is grind resources

Only 10% of planets actually have life on them, majority will be lifeless as are most planets we know about. So life itself will be pretty rare, scattered on only ≈100 out of "1000" planets

Some planets have only 1 biome. But that's probably related to already inhospitable planets. Can't have a biome if you have no biosphere

Planets with life do have multiple (says "few") biomes

You need to prepare before landing for environmental hazards, such as temperature, radiation and weather (think sand storms or icy winds)

You can get certain ilnesses / health problems (in direct we see "cough" and you can have multiple health issues but we weren't shown a lot of it)

"Planet traits" are mostly geological traits (likely related to just resource grind)

Surveying planets provides data. That data can be sold. The more you scan, the more money you'll receive. So you can earn for living just by scanning planets. Planet traits are included in this scanning

Aggressive animals can and, given the circumstances, will kill all other peaceful animals around

No land vehicles

You'll have to move around on foot or using a jetpack, which comes really handy on planets with lower gravity

Companions aren't mandatory / you can play the game solo without relying on companions, and certain character traits / skills help you with this specifically

There are multiple robot companions but Todd didn't want to share anything about them (so they're likely story relevant). "There is Vasco and something else"

Only constellation followers (4 of them) are romanceable and they have personal quests and affinity system (like in fallout 4). They're "more fleshed out" meaning other crew members you can hire are probably just generic npcs

If you don't like your companion anymore you can "leave them behind" or asign them to some middle of nowhere and forget about them or just leave them to some random outpost to farm materials for you

There are some "local radio stations" to tune

Todd doesn't think he'll be a good radio host

If you want to upgrade stolen ships, you must first pay to register them

Ship building / upgrading is reserved for late game, and it's very expensive

Todd didn't want to share what happens if you're scanned and caught with contraband

"Grav drive" is short for "graviton loop field array"

FTL works by bending space in front of you, like folding a paper and poking a hole through it

Volumetric fog and motion blur are a thing and it's one of the things that made the game locked to 30fps on consoles and Todd doesn't feel like removing those

Generic fetch quests are a thing obviously

Making outposts is for late game, it's expensive and requires some skills for advanced outposts (again like in fallout 4 with charisma perks). Supply lines between outposts is a thing

Outposts can generate revenue

When asked about black holes, he said he is "passing the question" so black holes will likely be very very relevant to the story

Vasco can't wear a hat :/

On a personal note:

I don't think the lack of land vehicles is a bad thing. From what we've seen, we're not supposed to stay on a planet for too long in one spot. So a vehicle for a small area we're expected to explore would be unnecessary. I mean, I see the reasoning not to include them, but I would've prefered if they were a vanilla thing

Radios are most definitely not going to be music stations like in fallout. They'll most likely be distress calls. That, and if bethesda feel generous, we'll get another silver shroud-esque quest

Lack of life forms isn't surprising. I mean, other than our planet we don't know about life anywhere in space. So only 10% of planets having life isn't that unrealistic

We certainly won't be clapping any alien cheeks, but I'm convinced that the game is about First contact. We have plenty of AAA games where humanity works with / against / for different alien races, but one about meeting aliens for the first time, I can't think of one

Black hole(s) will be extremely important, given how reluctant Todd was to talk about them

[doktorpeace]

I finished Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Redeemed

All in all absolutely phenomenal experience. Truly a visionary and audacious way to end such a popular series. Thematically resonant through to the end and well earned in the resolution it goes for. Beyond this I'm going to put a read more, under which will contain spoilers for the entire Xeno- franchise. That means Gears, Saga Episodes I-III, Chronicles 1-3, and X. I have a lot of thoughts and plenty more marinating to do, but these are my initial impressions.

Somehow managing to connect all of the Xeno- series not to AUs but canonically the same Prime Earth, which contextually is Our Earth is RIDICULOUS in how he pulled it off. It feels truly organic to all of the stories *AND* doesn't contradict any of them! It even, seemingly, directly ties into the beginning of X with it being 'May 23rd, 2022'. Elma arrived on Earth in the early 2020s and I believe she's that blue dot we see flying onto the Earth at the end of the credits.

Smashing all of those different FTL/Outer Space Colonization projects into a single radio broadcast in the background of just one cutscene is truly remarkable. Just a few lines recontextualizes this man's entire career.

And also, to those in the know, it reveals that all three of them: The Earthlife Colonization Project (Xenogears) The Immigrant Fleet (Xenosaga) and Project Exodus (Xenoblade X)

Occur due to Zohar related experiments gone horrifically wrong. Which we know from each series individually. But knowing that all of them stem from a single post-scarcity, conflict-free, truly equitable and globalized Earth, which nonetheless kept on trying different experiments with these godlike processors and all of them went awry is really interesting.

This game in particular very much focuses on the idea that advancement and power and control for their own sake are meaningless. If you don't have an idea behind it, if you don't want to make things the world tangibly better it's pointless.

Future Redeemed successfully ties every Xeno- game into this theme directly, no matter how subtle they are about it in their own content.

The Chronicles games happened solely because Klaus wanted to play God and make a new universe he would control, using The Zohar.

Gears happened because The Gazel Ministry wanted to create a creature that matched the Biblical God in terms of ability which they could control.

The Saga games happened because people wanted this power for transhumanism, to perfectly control the genes and births of every person, to ignore the realities of death and disease, but in doing so became so entrenched in making literal Designer Babies that it cuts off natural human diversity and reduces the people born to mere products and instruments shilled by different companies with different patents.

And all of these happened from The Zohar, a processor/machine mind that far outstrips anything humanity can believe. A thing which the humans of Earth only discovered by chance. Being meddled with purely out of avarice and hubris. The humans of that Earth didn't need any of those things. They'd already accomplished a perfect, post scarcity world. And that's why Alvis, a machine who's sole purpose is to be the logical arbiter between two other AI, when left to his own devices, decided going back to that would be best, no matter the cost.

He saw all of the tragedies in the three Chronicles settings that occurred solely due to Klaus' hubris and realized none of it would happen if these humans, the ones who've only known strife and difficulty and pain, had access to that post scarcity, conflict free, equitable world and beyond this, Takahashi buries the lede a little bit.

All of those previously mentioned projects to get humans off of earth. They're all cover ups by the Coalition Government of Earth. They're all touted as great advancements for human progress and potential but in actuality they're all just covering up massive, horrific, failures which would each result in the destruction of the Earth and its people. It's just Klaus' mistake had such immediate and tremendous consequences it couldn't be covered up.

Everything was destroyed in an instant. And we see, in Gears and Saga, that those decisions still ultimately do lead to an unimaginable amount of human suffering, just not on Earth. All they've done is ship off that suffering, literally, to some far reach of space.

Underpinning all of this is a distrust in the government and their motivations. A distrust for authority who claims they only want best for you.

Which is why Fei returns to living a quaint life. It's why Shion and Kos-Mos return to their normal. It's why Shulk refuses to become a god. It's why Rex and Pneuma live simple lives. And it's why Noah throws away the Sword of the End.

Each has the chance to become an ultimate authority, to have complete dominion over the lives of countless others, and they all give that up to just be...human. This franchise is truly something special. I cannot wait to see what comes next.

Please, Takahashi. Let us go back to Mira now.

Thank you, truly, @andawarmgeek, for sending me a download code out of the blue for Future Redeemed. This was an experience that I won't soon forget.