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quicksandblock · 4 years ago

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Hi!! I’ve just spent way too long writing down a probably excessive amount of worldbuilding for Jevin’s species in @martuzzio‘s hermit space outlaws AU!!! Disclaimer: I pulled everything scientific-sounding in this post straight out of my ass. Also I’m pretty sure I contradict things that have been established as canon at at least a couple points. martuzzio, please feel free to take this or leave it, or only take part of it, whatever you like. I just got hit by worldbuilding inspiration! And I had to get it out!!

History of Slimes!

Modern slimes’ ancestors were simple, non-intelligent slimes a lot like the Minecraft ones. Jevin’s species (the only intelligent species on the planet) is specifically descended from cave dwelling slimes, but there were also species that lived aboveground in damp environments such as swamps.

Ancient slimes needed very damp environments in order to survive. (Even the ones that lived aboveground were nocturnal, because direct sunlight could be deadly to them!) Modern slimes, including Jevin’s species, are much much more resilient than their ancestors, though hot and dry environments are still bad for them. This change came about because of a mass extinction event that killed most ancient slime species as well as most other life on the planet!

Slimeworld used to be a very wet place, but several million years ago, something happened to cause a planet-wide drought. The evolutionary pressures of the drought are what eventually led to the rise of Slimes as an intelligent species - before then, there was no intelligent life on the planet.

The cause would have to be unnatural, because I'm pretty sure there’s no natural way for a planet to just lose all its water. So I think some advanced spacefaring species came and drained most of the water off of Slimeworld for some reason. Why? Who knows, they’re probably all dead now.

This catastrophe left almost no habitats for slimes to live in. The surface-dwelling species almost all died immediately, with only a few hanging on in obscure corners of the world. The ones in the caves were a little safer, but not for long, because the devastation wasn’t just limited to slimes!

The extreme damage to Slimeworld’s environment killed off most life on the planet. The ancient cave slimes thrived for a little while! Dead stuff falling into caves from above had always been their main food source. But eventually the fallout of the drought settled and the famine hit them too.

Food was scarce and it wasn’t coming to them anymore. Anything that wanted to eat on this new world needed to be able to survive and ideally travel long distances in the harsher climates of the outside world. Most cave slimes couldn’t do that, so most cave slimes died off. But a few had mutations that let them do just well enough to survive. Those were the ones that evolved into Jevin’s species!

Ancient slimes spent a long time hanging around cave mouths, rolling out at night to find food and retreating back during the day. The ones that got the furthest and still managed to make it back were the most successful. The first big break of the Slime species in terms of intelligence was when they started carrying their shelter around with them instead of having to hide every day.

That’s right: the first human technology was sharp stick, but the first Slime technology was leaf hat.

Physiology of Slimes!

Ancient slimes started out pretty much the same as slime molds here on Earth. They were colonies of individual organisms that all acted together like a single body, but could survive just fine on their own. However over time they evolved to become more and more dependent on the colony, and the cells became more and more specialized. Now they’re something in between a colony and an individual! Each cell of their body is technically a different organism, but they can’t function outside of the colony. Also, each colony does have a single consciousness, they’re not hiveminds.

They evolved like this because in the harsh environment of the drought, a single cell would die in minutes. A colony could retain moisture for much longer! The fact that colonies were now staying together all the time let them start to evolve more internal organization, which led to the evolution of intelligence!

Slimes are very structurally simple. A slime is made up of a jelly-like mass and a more rubbery, less malleable core.

The jelly layer cells have a unique structure - under a microscope they kind of look like sea urchins, but with long flexible tendrils instead of spines. The way they tangle and cling lets the slime hold together and keep its structure instead of melting!

The tendrils also act as transmitters and receptors for the electrical signals sent out by the slime’s “brain.” Each cell is in constant communication with all the cells around it, which is how a slime moves and controls its body. They also pass nutrients to each other based on chemical signals!

However the structure of these cells means that they lose water very easily. In hot or dry environments, the tendrils of the cells retract to reduce the amount of surface area that water can escape from. This means they don’t cling together as easily, and the slime “melts.” Enough time in its melted state and the cells start to die because nutrients aren’t being passed around the body like they should be.

The jelly-layer cells are all pretty much interchangeable. They’re also very adaptable! When exposed to open air, jelly cells lock up their tendrils and partially dehydrate themselves, passing the liquid back into the mass of jelly behind them. The result is the thin, rubbery “skin” of a slime’s body. This was the most crucial adaptation that allowed modern Slimes’ ancestors to survive the drought, since it drastically improves their ability to retain water.

The core cells are different, more structured. The core is a slime’s brain. If most of a slime’s body is like jelly, the core would be like stringy algae. It’s still very flexible and malleable, but if it tears or breaks, that damage can’t just be healed by squishing the parts back together. The brain is usually kept scrunched up safely in the middle of the slime’s body, and there’s a dense layer of more rubbery jelly surrounding it.

Slimes can digest almost any organic material, but a lot of the life on their planet evolved to be toxic to them, and if something is toxic to slimes you better believe it’s toxic to most everything else. There are a lot of really weird toxins native to Slimeworld!

Culture of Slimes!

First I’ll just copy/paste the ask about Slime fashion I sent to martuzzio a while ago since I am still enamored with it:

idea: since they're blind, Jevin's species's fashion is entirely based around the vibrations they make when they contact whatever surface they're moving on. you pick up different materials or combinations of material depending on what "look" you're going for and hold it on the outside of your body. they could use all kinds of material for this - cloth, metal, powders, whatever. you arrange different items in patterns on your surface to create different "outfits" (soundscapes) of vibration. the more complex the pattern, the fancier and more formal the "dress." this stuff makes it a bit more difficult to move since it reduces their traction, and it also takes effort to maintain more complicated "outfits", so dressing up is really only for formal situations or showing off. casual dress is keeping just a few things you like the sound of on your surface, and it's also perfectly acceptable to wear nothing at all. of course this all looks really weird to people with eyes.

Slime language doesn’t just involve sound. It also incorporates chemical signals (which give a sense of the slime’s mood and fulfill the same function as body language does for us humans) and touch. Two slimes having a conversation will press tendrils of their body together and communicate with something like a cross between braille and sign language. This is actually the main component of their language - sound is kind of secondary. It’s impossible for a non-slime to “speak” the slime language without the help of technology, and slimes can’t make the range of sounds that humans do with their vocal cords. Fortunately they can hear at least as well as humans and using a soundboard to talk is pretty intuitive for them!

Most slime cities are either underground or underwater. The oceans of Slimeworld are pretty densely populated! It actually led to a lot of environmental problems in the Slime species’s history, because there isn’t a ton of ocean left to live in. A lot of aquatic animals on the planet went extinct during the slimes’ industrial revolution a thousand years or so ago.

Slimes obviously don’t have visual art since they’re blind. Some of the main art forms of the species are perfume and culinary art! Because of all the stuff on their planet that’s toxic to them, slimes evolved a very keen sense of taste/smell. They can detect minuscule amounts of a chemical. Most other species can’t appreciate their art because their senses aren’t fine enough to pick up on all the subtle flavors and smells! Also slimes’ ideas about what tastes and smells good can be... eccentric.

They also do sculpture and music. They have some really awesome musical instruments because they can shape their body to whatever shape it needs to be to use the instrument!

Personal space isn’t really a thing in slime culture. Their language requires being in constant contact to speak, so casual touch with strangers isn’t just normal, it’s the polite thing to do. If there’s a group of slimes in a room, each one is pretty much always touching at least one or two others. Blobbing together is natural for them!

...aaand that’s all I got for now, because it’s 4:30 AM. I hope this is coherent because I didn’t really edit it! If you have literally any questions at all please let me know! because there are certainly details that didn’t make it in here!!

#martuzzio #space outlaws lore #hermitcraft #worldbuilding #slimes #ijevin #I don't even watch jevin... I just really like worldbuilding and I love this au......#and now it's almost 5 am help me

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parvuls · 4 years ago

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fic: in the space between (2/2)

word count: 6.6k

rating: teen

tags: space, science fiction, enemies to friends to lovers, pre-relationship

notes: due to length and tumblr's formatting, reading on ao3 is recommended

(part 1 | part 2 | read on ao3)

“Just a month till we’re home, boys,” Holster announces as he climbs into the bottom bunk across from Eric, addressing the dark room at large. Eric can hear him shift around in his bed, sheets rustling with his movements. “Can I get a hallelujah?”

“You can get pizza,” Ransom replies dreamily from the top bunk above him. “Because Holtzy -- The Real fucking Pep God. You and me, Matty Matheson pepperoni. One month.”

There’s one month left until landing back in Houston and disbanding for three weeks of leave. It’s been creeping up in conversations for weeks now, nestling itself in crew breakfasts and mission briefs and downtime. Shitty waxes poetry about things like dipping his toes into the ocean and breathing that sweet Terra air as often as he talks about smoking three joints at once the moment they set foot on the ground. Holster and Ransom talk about the heaps of food they’ll be shoveling to compensate for a year of outer space cuisine. Jack doesn’t talk about much other than the missions, and Eric thinks about organic chemistry and molecular modeling on good days, thinks about crying on bad ones. He talks about almost anything else to distract himself and hopes to Jesus that no one can tell.

The picture frame on the shelf by his bunk wobbles on its back stand as the ship tips into Krer orbit for the night. Krer itself is dim and murky, obscuring the shining lights of its neighboring planets and cloaking the crew quarters’ portal window in darkness. Jack said that the last mission of this tour should be coming in from Flight Director Hall sometime during the night.

Eric sighs quietly, turns onto his side, and stares blindly at the blank white of the wall as he mentally runs through the primary structure of proteins once more. Holster and Ransom are arguing about the best Toronto pizza in the background, the sound of their voices weaving in with the beeps of the ship’s machinery and the creaking noises of it when in motion.

“You gotta come too, Bittle,” Holster says, drawing Eric’s attention. He rolls his head to the other side, watches Holster’s blurred figure move in the dark to lean over the edge of his bunk. Eric must’ve missed a change of conversation. “Getting together over leave? We spend the last day before launch together, all of us. Y��know, hitting some bar, maybe watching a game, then catching the plane to Texas in the morning. Last time we went to Shitty’s -- man, that was fucking wild sauce.”

“And you gotta meet Lardo,” Ransom adds. “Crew bylaws. Sorry, rookie, everyone’s in.”

There are ten densely-printed pages about prokaryotes crumpled in the back of Eric’s personal locker, that he’s riffled through maybe twice. Eric chews his lip raw, tries to think of a carefully-masqueraded way of brushing the invitation off, but Holster grumbles lowly before he can. “Well, not everyone.”

“Right,” Ransom says, his enthusiastic tone turning slightly hesitant. “But. Us and Shitty and Lardo and probably her trainee Ford. It’s almost everyone.”

It’s almost everyone, plus ground team. “But not Jack,” Eric concludes, unintentionally dismayed. He should know better by now than to be disappointed, probably. He should, but doesn’t.

Holster sighs and throws himself back onto the mattress, bed springs groaning loudly. “Jack doesn’t really do social things. He’s too cool for them. Which -- whatever, man, who cares, it’s probably more fun for us that way. So you in?”

What Eric’s in for is a world of trouble. Eric’s in for the sweltering heat of the Texan desert, he’s in for submerging in textbooks all the way up to his ears, he’s in for never being quite enough for this world. He turns his head back to the other side, facing the wall, and stifles a sigh.

“I’ll think about it,” he promises, and knows that he will, also knows he’d never be able to say yes. He doesn’t leave them enough time to round up on him before he adds, “Now shut your pieholes, gentlemen, some people need their beauty sleep. And by some people I do mean y’all.”

“Really, he means you,” Ransom tells Holster, and there’s the distinct sound of Holster reaching up and whacking the top bunk with a pillow. Eric buries his face in his sheets and tries to think distracting thoughts loudly enough to drown out the constant screeching noise of his worries. That, at least, is something he’s an expert at.

Eric wishes he could say that he spent his entire life looking up to the stars. That would be a lie.

He spent most of his childhood looking at the ground, instead. At the toe picks beneath his feet; at the dough rising in the oven; at the floor of his school’s hallways, trying to avoid eye contact. The sky in Georgia was ordinarily clear, stars blinking in and out of view, but they’d never held much of Eric’s interest. He wouldn’t have known what to search for even if he’d tried.

Eric, aged eighteen, went to college mostly for the going and less for college. New England was as much an escape as it was a destination. He liked some of his classes, didn’t like others -- remained undeclared for most of junior year, bouncing around between classes about food and culture. He put off doing his work for too long and preferred baking to writing essays too often, but it was fine, most of the time. His days were filled with more people than papers and he found that it was exactly the way he liked it.

College was the point Eric realized that, once he’d stopped being too afraid to try, he was really good with people.

“You could charm mountains into moving for you,” his sophomore year roommate told him, not without a hint of exasperation, when Eric fretted about meeting his first boyfriend’s parents. “Literally everybody likes you.”

And Eric laughed nervously, said, “Come on now, that is certainly not true,” because he couldn’t charm thirteen year old bullies out of forcing him across the state, couldn’t make small-town Georgia like him for who he really was. Those seemed a lot like immovable mountains to him.

But people flocked to his vlog, kept telling him he was so charismatic, and his hockey team kept turning to him for advice with their problems, and in November of junior year he reviewed his credits, expecting to see every food class his college had to offer, but found Populism and Norms and Deviance and Inequality and Social Change, instead.

He got his B.A. Got his master’s, too, not particularly fond of academia but not too keen on leaving the shelter it provided, either. He accepted an offer to work as a consultant for a big company right after grad school, spent a year expertly tailoring trade relations and marketing techniques to partners and customers from foreign cultures. He understood people, liked people, and people, apparently, liked him. It wasn’t the job of his dreams but it was a decent start, and once the one year mark came and went he began considering PR work, maybe putting his people skills to a smaller-scale use. He was twenty-five and definitely not unhappy and his eyes were, always, firmly on the ground.

And then -- well. Then, one day, NASA called.

Jack gathers the four of them outside the flight deck to inform them that their crew has been tasked with the last Human-Islik Intergalactic Treaty info exchange of the quarter, in time for the summit meeting at the end of August. He tells them Flight Director Hall is counting on them, tells them to wear clean suits, and when Holster and Ransom begin chanting last mission, last mission, last mission, he sternly reminds them that being assigned to the Treaty IE is an honor. Still, when they all scatter and the two of them practically skip down the bridge, Eric thinks he sees the corners of Jack’s mouth twitch.

The mission takes four days, requires a series of security checks before entering each room and short transmissions to Houston for green lights at every step. Islikaru has the largest concentration of humans outside of Earth, but protocol must be followed nevertheless. Eric shakes hands, shakes paws, shakes tentacles, makes pleasant small talk and smiles brightly and lets Ransom ramble about science and Jack deal with bureaucracy. It feels at last like a familiar dance, and Eric tries not to think about how much he doesn’t ever want to stop dancing.

By dusk of the fourth day Shitty convinces Jack to wrap it up at a local eatery, the crew crowded around a small table in a pressurized O2 pod with their helmets thrown on the seats by their thighs. Eric finds himself squeezed between Jack on one side and Shitty on the other, a cool syrupy drink emitting translucent wisps of steam in his hand. Holster orders for all of them in rusty Isli that may or may not actually result in food, but they’re all just too jubilant to care.

“Alright boys,” Shitty hollers, banging his coaster on the table several times for effect. The glass containers holding all of their drinks jiggle with its force, creating a cheerful ringing sound. “A toast to this fucking beaut of a year. Being stuck in a cramped metal case floating in nothing for three hundred sixty-five days has been a great pleasure with your rockin’ bods for company. Fucking cheers!”

Ransom whoops, Shitty pretends to wipe a tear, Holster belts out the chorus of Cheers’ theme song passionately. Eric watches them, helplessly indulgent, and thinks: he’s actually making a home here.

On his other side, Jack shoves one of the food baskets towards Eric with his knuckles and says, “You should try the octo-bacon, if you haven’t.” His eyes meet Eric’s for a brief moment, make Eric’s lungs expand in his chest. He can’t remember the last time Jack spoke to him for no good reason.

Jack’s face is uniquely relaxed, his jaw convulsing as he fruitlessly tries not to laugh at something Shitty says, and Eric’s former thought continues, completely unbidden: gracious, I’m going to miss these boys so much. Their bickering and their worst habits and their dumbest moments. Holster’s booming voice, Ransom’s midnight thesis writing, Shitty’s insistence on nudity, Jack’s continual ability to confuse him.

“Holy shit, man,” Ransom says, slamming his emptied drink onto the table and staring at its last drops in awe. “What the fuck is this shit. I need another one ASAP.”

“Not it!” Holster calls, and then stretches his arm across the table, fingertip of his index finger pointed mere inches from Jack’s face. “But I just know our commander would love to buy his best crew another round. Right, Zimmermann?”

“You’re my only crew, Birkholtz,” Jack rolls his eyes, mostly good-natured. Holster’s wiggling finger and Shitty’s foot kicking at his shin beneath the table must goad him into action anyway, because he puts his helmet back on, disappears out of the pod and towards the service counter without further protest.

While Eric watches him go, Shitty slides closer in the booth and flings his arm around Eric, tugs him right into the crook of Shitty’s body.

“This is it, Bittle,” he sighs, eyes closing dramatically. “Once this tour ends, you will no longer hold the title of rookie. Finally, you will graduate to the same titles everybody else gets -- mainly bro, or fucker, or, if I’m spectacularly schwasted, yo, what’syourname. This is a monumental day for all. You might even get a nickname. Are you appropriately emotional?”

Eric is emotional about many things. He can't stop thinking about this crew and what they've come to mean to him, can't stop hating keeping secrets, can't stop dreading the moment they cross back into Earth. Eric is emotional about the possibility of seeing his mama again, and what it'll mean if he does; Eric is emotional about life in general, right now, so he says, “Sure thing, Shitty,” and shoves a ring of octo-bacon into his mouth. It seems, for lack of a better option, like the smartest response.

From above Ransom’s head, Eric spots Jack reappearing just beyond the glassy walls of the pod, carrying a tray with four containers between both hands. He then keeps watching, helpless and open-mouthed, as another astronaut rises from a nearby booth and slams into Jack shoulder-first, tipping the entire tray sideways and nearly knocking its contents over and to the floor.

“Oh shit, sorry mate!” the man exclaims, immediately reaching out to catch Jack’s hands and help stable the tray. His Australian accent is thick, the ASA pin decorating the shoulder that knocked into Jack glinting under artificial lights. The two of them grab the tray with three hands, containers sliding back into place still intact, before the man’s eyes flick up and catch on Jack’s face. He then jerks back, his eyes widening and his hands yanked away from Jack like he’s afraid to catch on fire. “Fuck, Zimmermann! I didn’t see it was you! Fuck my life, uh -- here, I’ll pay for the drinks --”

Eric watches, crestfallen, as Jack’s previously relaxed expression gradually darkens back into his usual scowl, lips disappearing between his teeth. “It’s fine, don’t --”

The other astronaut shakes his head vehemently, shoving his gloved hand into his utility pocket and fishing out some local coins that he then throws onto the tray haphazardly.

“Fuck no, mate, I’m not taking risks with you,” he hurries backwards, flat palms raised up, like he’s under some kind of threat Eric can’t read in Jack’s distressed body language. “For real, it was an accident, don’t get your dad to kick me off the program, yeah?”

The man backs off, scurrying back to his pod and to his whispering crewmates. Jack remains standing, shoulders rigid and tray held in clenched white knuckles, vacant stare fixed on the floor. Eric glances away from Jack for the first time since he saw him approach and notices that his whole table is silent and tense. He catches Shitty’s furrowed eyebrows and Ransom’s worried look, and becomes slowly conscious of the fact that unlike him, everybody else already know what just went on in front of them.

Jack’s mood seems to fracture, then. He steps through the pod’s sliding sealing and sets the tray down on the table too forcibly, glass containers knocking together. He doesn’t sit back down. Shitty parts his mouth to say something, but Jack latches his helmet closed before he can, muttering, “I’m done for tonight. I’ll see you guys back on the ship.”

His face is almost blank, valiantly trying for imperviousness, but Eric has never seen him look so decidedly miserable before. Instinctively, he reaches out to grab Jack’s wrist; he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what just happened, but he does know that Jack shouldn’t leave like that. He manages to stammer out, “...Jack --” before Jack tears his hand away from Eric’s grip with the same excessive aggression that rattled the drinks, and says curtly, “Excuse me.”

Eric stares at his back stalking off until he's entirely out of view, feels unjustly hurt and primarily very confused.

Jack Zimmermann is --

Jack Zimmermann is one of NASA’s Arctic Project’s best pilots and ship commanders, Eric learned his first year in the program. He’s exceptionally committed to his job, loyal to his crew, unwaveringly focused on the mission. He’s direct, sometimes brutally so. He’s good at following orders, makes tough decisions under pressure, and never takes the opportunity to rub elbows with the higher ups. He just loves what he does, and does it notably well.

The name and the legend is a lot to live up to, but when Eric met Jack he realized that the man is exactly as he’s advertised. Jack, in the role of Jack Zimmermann, is straightforwardly that: an amazing astronaut, an amazing ship commander, an amazing pilot.

It’s unfortunate, then, that Jack in the role of a human being is sometimes an enormous asshole.

The ship’s lights are all off when the boys straggle themselves back on board later in the evening, their boots dragging sluggishly against gravity. When Jack left, the celebratory mood followed his footsteps out the door; no one seemed the least bit inclined to talk about it, so Eric didn’t ask. Though the four of them did their best to recover, cracking halfhearted jokes and staying for another couple of rounds, even Shitty’s mustache seems to droop lower than normal by the time they finally find their way back to the ship.

Shitty passes airlock and walks straight towards the pilots’ quarters without saying a thing, so Eric wordlessly follows Holster and Ransom into their own quarters, brow still creased with puzzlement. He watches as Holster starts stripping by the door and Ransom sits down on the bottom bunk to take off his gear, and waits, and waits, until the silence is just too strange to handle.

“Alright, can anyone tell me what in the deep-fried hell was that?”

Holster glowers, rips off his support strap with gusto. He doesn’t answer, so Eric turns his frown at Ransom, who sighs as he removes the tough overshoe off his boots. “Ignore him, Bittle. Jack just gets real bitchy when people mention his dad. Which happens pretty often because, you now, his dad.”

“His dad…?” Eric prompts, desperate, because it seems like he should know something that he doesn’t. It’s not in the least a foreign feeling these days, when concerning space and science and always, always Jack.

Ransom looks up at him, one boot dangling from his left hand. “Yeah, you know, his dad. It’s a lot of pressure, living up to that. It’s probably most of why Jack is how Jack is.”

Eric doesn’t believe daddy issues are any excuse to be so surly, and he thinks, rather bitterly, that he would know something about the matter. But he pushes, still, because it’s always one step forward and three steps back with Jack, and any scrap of information making his commander seem a little more human could go a long way right now. Or even not human; Lord knows Eric can figure out nonhums just fine. “What does he have to live up to?”

Holster pauses peeling off the suit’s hard upper torso to squint incredulously at Eric. The lower torso assembly of the suit pools around his thighs. “You don’t know who Mad Bob is?”

“Uh,” Eric deflates, taking a tentative step back, the crown of his head hitting the frame of the top bunk. The tone of conversation begins to sound a lot like the time he disclosed that he doesn’t really know the periodic table or has, at any point of time, known it at all. “No. I don’t.”

Ransom throws his other boot to the side and leans forward, elbows resting on his knees and face contorting into an expression that closely mirrors Holster’s; surprised, scandalized, disbelieving. “He’s like -- Mad Bob. He was the first commander in the original Avalanche Project. He was the first pilot to leave the Solar System and come back alive?”

“They say he was the first to meet extraterrestrial life!” Holster gestures grandly with his hand, yanking off the EV glove to have free use of the other hand as well.

“That’s actually not true,” Ransom clarifies, “No nonhum races were recorded until almost a decade later --”

“Not the point, dude,” Holster waves him off. “The point is, Mad Bob is a legend. His ship nearly burned on the way back to Earth and he totally saved everyone on board. Made the first round trip, you know? He’s a big fucking deal. Can’t believe you’ve never heard of him.”

Eric blanches, digs his nails into his skin to hold his instinctual reaction at bay. Eric spent the first twenty-five years of his life with his feet planted firmly on the ground, his eyes never straying upwards. Later, Eric spent every moment of his time at Houston scrambling to prove his worth in an environment so wholly alien to him that the irony in the metaphor was no longer funny. Eric wouldn’t be able to tell Neil Armstrong from Adam, just like Eric can never really remember the difference between Newton’s and Einstein's theories, doesn't know the primary structure of proteins even now. Eric doesn’t belong here, and he’s quickly running out of time to pretend like he does.

“Oh,” he says finally, weakly. Holster and Ransom haven’t looked away from him yet, so he averts his eyes, turns to face his bunk. “Must’ve just missed it somehow.”

He can almost hear Holster and Ransom hem and haw for a few long, silent moments, before the sound of nylon rustling resumes. Eric takes a deep breath, and does his very best not to regret ever asking. It’s made worse by the fact that this hasn't really helped him understand Jack any better than before.

So Jack had spent most of Eric’s first few months on the ship treating Eric like an inconvenience. That was okay -- it hadn’t been the first time he’d been perceived like that, and it wouldn’t be the last. He hadn’t been a fresh-faced teenager from the South in a long while; he’d been older, tougher. He’d been places and had met people, nicer people and smarter people and even meaner people than Jack Zimmermann. He hadn’t really needed a pat on the shoulder or an encouraging smile, just the opportunity to do his job, and do it well.

The real problem was that Eric had always been good at his job because he understood people. And Eric, despite his best begrudging efforts, cannot make sense of Jack.

Jack, who clearly had not understood Eric’s job at all until, suddenly and out of nowhere, there was Evor. Jack who, after Evor, told Eric good work and sounded like maybe he even meant it. Jack who, after Evor, was sat by Eric when Lardo radioed to tell them that Jack’s report had made the deputy administrator call to congratulate Eric specifically.

Jack who, also after Evor, stopped meeting Eric’s eyes unless absolutely necessary. Jack, who Eric sometimes caught staring from the corner of his eye, looking lost in thoughts. Jack, who roughhoused with Shitty in the flight deck, and arranged Holster a private DSN connection for his mom’s birthday, and listened to Charlie Rich on late night piloting shifts -- but whose glimpses of personality disappeared the moment Eric tried to study them for too long.

Missions transformed into something different in the aftermath of Evor. A month after the crew’s return to action they were sent to do testing on the magnetic field of Pladora, and Jack put Eric in charge of communication with the local scientists without preambles. Eric choked, floundered, but grabbed the opportunity with both hands; he still couldn’t shake the weight of Jack’s gaze on his shoulders whenever he spoke with the Pladoran team.

Later, Jack pulled him aside and asked, “Are you capable of confidently explaining to me the exact kind of testing we’re doing here?”, stared at Eric until he was fidgeting uncomfortably in place. “It’s important that you can do that,” he added, like Eric didn’t already know, like Eric didn’t think about it every night before he fell asleep, like he needed Jack’s eyes on him for that, making the nape of his neck burn and his palms tingle with sweat. But Jack frowned at him, then, took a step back, like he didn’t understand why Eric was flushed with embarrassment. It almost seemed for a moment like he wasn’t actively gunning for humiliation.

And then it happened again. Two weeks after that they were helping ESA fix a satellite on a German space station, and Jack left Eric to discuss mission parameters unattended, but also ordered him to watch Shitty install a new GPS chip for three hours. During the strategy session for a recon mission in the Austra System, Jack insisted on hearing Eric’s opinion, but also accosted him after it to demand that Eric read about the complication with the wavelength disturbance. In a charged encounter with destitute merchants from a dead galaxy, Jack remained two steps behind Eric’s right shoulder and let him conciliate them, but when Eric later babbled about the civil turmoil caused by the demise of the galaxy, Jack asserted that he should understand the astrophysical process leading to such death.

So Eric generously thought: maybe Jack was trying, poorly. But three months after Evor the two of them returned to the ship frazzled and peeved, had spent most of the day wrangling with diplomats on Uzeru, and Eric scrubbed a hand over his face, resolved to try one more time. He offered Jack a friendly, tired smile, and said, “Wanna share bad coffee in the kitchen to drown our sorrows?”, but Jack only shook his head once, sharply, before immediately walking away.

The inability to make any sense of it consumes Eric's thoughts for much longer than he's comfortable with. Jack pushes and then pulls, hovers over Eric professionally but disappears the moment it’s interpersonal. A week before they're off for leave Eric looks up from his plate to see Jack taking his dinner into the flight deck, ignoring Shitty’s offer to join him, and thinks that maybe he can never peek past Jack's mask because Jack makes sure to turn away whenever it comes off. He thinks that maybe this is what loneliness looks like, thinks that he should still know better than to care, thinks for the first time that maybe Jack’s silent treatment is nothing more than not knowing what to say to Eric after Evor. Thinks that maybe Jack’s inept solution to not knowing what to say is to just say nothing at all.

The impact crater chipping Vylos’ surface is visible from two-hundred thousand miles out. It’s the nearest planet to the jumping point back to Earth, and its crater serves as a parking lot for all ships on their way to or from there. Its chaotic layout strongly reminds Eric of the QuikTrip station just north of Atlanta, but he bites his tongue and keeps that to himself. Jack and Shitty have probably never seen a QuikTrip, anyway.

Jack grumbles about finding a parking space on the night before leave, body curved over the control wheel and eyes squinted at the windowpane. Shitty leaves him to it, drapes his legs sideways on his armrest to tell Eric about the long claws of capitalism stretching into the cosmos, and how this has resulted in Vylosian beer being the best there is this side of the Milky Way, “Even though it’s like, totally not a real beer, dude, but -- marketing ploy!”, and how its atmosphere was chemically engineered, “To be breathable for all us Earthly suckers passing by ‘cause of the jump point. Filthy fucking marketing plot, I tell ya -- and the beer costs like my goddamn kidney.”

“Your goddamn kidney’s not worth much with the amount of Vylosian beer you regularly consume,” Jack interjects, lowering the ship into a vacant spot skillfully. Vylos’ terrain, reflected at Eric from the three surrounding windows in the flight deck, is grainy and blue.

The Vylosian bar Shitty buoyantly pushes them into is decorated in mismatched memorabilia, posters of Uma Thurman and Justin Bieber and a life-size stormtrooper suit personally signed by George Lucas looming by the wall. The AI pouring the drinks is a hologram in the shape of a Western saloon bartender, the beer is thick and neon green. Eric’s been outside the Kármán line for nearly a year and feels caught by surprise, still, almost daily; but tonight he gets to wear denim shorts instead of nylon spacesuits, gets to clink his glass against Ransom’s, gets to pretend that tomorrow isn’t possibly the end of it all. It has to be enough, he thinks, and takes a determined drink.

Their group starts out leaning against the wooden countertop, skin sticking to its surface. Later, Holster and Ransom chat their way into the table of two local girls, and Jack disappears from view. Eventually, their group winds up scattered across different corners of the bar, red-faced and loose. Eric catches himself repeatedly looking up from the bottom of his glass to the open door, at the pale glint of the sky just outside it, and after a thorough sweep around he takes his drink, gets up, and starts walking.

The bar overlooks the vast expanses of the crater sprawling beneath it, and Eric finds himself sitting outside at the edge of the cliff, thighs bare over the rough azure dirt and beer glass tilting in his hand. Vylos’ three moons are out of sync, rising and peaking and setting in a simultaneous cycle, and Eric is busy watching them when he hears heavy footsteps coming up behind him.

He’s surprised to find Jack standing there, suspended in motion with his hands deep in his pockets and his hair windswept, figure backlit by the lights of the bar twinkling behind him. He seems just as startled to see Eric; his expression wavers out of its usual stoic façade to betray some semblance of emoting.

“Oh, Bittle, I -- I thought you’re inside with the boys,” Jack blinks, a hint of a frown wrinkling his forehead.

“No,” Eric blinks in turn, unsettled by this strange creature wearing the face of his commander. He looks so different in jeans and an AsCans training program t-shirt, out of the bulky spacesuits they spend most days in. “Uh -- no. I’m not.”

“Right.” Jack nods stiffly, glances at the ground and then at a spot somewhere over Eric’s shoulder. His body language is guarded, and he looks misplaced, painfully awkward. They still haven’t exchanged more than two or three sentences in private since Evor and Eric, typically the chatterbox, wouldn’t even know where to begin. “Well, uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll go.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Eric says, before he can think too carefully about why the heck he’d say such a thing. Before he can recall the snapshot memory of Jack turning to eat dinner in the flight deck, alone. “I mean. I’m just sitting here. Drinking alien beer,” he raises his glass, the bright green liquid sloshing around, leaving traces of neon on its rim. The ridiculousness of the situation may be slightly lost on Jack, but not on him. Space still is, and probably always will be, kind of weird.

“Right,” Jack repeats, the line of his back tightening and his eyes narrowing at Eric. “Be careful with that. Don’t want you to throw up during descent tomorrow.”

Dear Lord. One step forward and three steps back. “Yes, Commander,” Eric sighs, swallowing the chagrin out of his voice. His shoulders sag as his body curls towards the view, away from Jack. God forbid Jack Zimmermann think about anything other than the mission for a single flippin' moment. Eric should know better than to be disappointed, but the sour churn of his stomach is unmistakable. Eric should, but doesn’t.

The footsteps behind him pick up again, and he expects to hear Jack walking farther and farther away. Instead, he’s shocked into silence by Jack sliding into his peripheral view, sitting down beside him on the cliff. His shoulders are rigid, his mouth pressed thin. His expression looks like he’s as bewildered as Eric by his own actions.

“Are you excited to go back?” Jack asks after a long, uncomfortable minute, during which they both sit mutely and watch the pits of Vylos before them. Its second moon has finished a full rotation and is now shining down in soft lilac beams. Jack’s voice is tense, flat; this boy, Eric thinks almost pityingly, really is terrible at small talk.

He’s been asked this question a dozen times that month, but mustering his practiced fake enthusiasm now seems hard. Maybe it’s the alien alcohol; maybe it’s that Jack could regress into not speaking to him again at any moment. “I guess so. Home sweet home, ‘m I right?”

Jack shrugs one shoulder, a short and angular movement. “It doesn't feel like going home to me,” he says, honest and plain. “I spend most of my time out here. It’s more like -- a summer vacation. Some people go to the Caribbean and we go visit Earth.”

Eric nods, absently, unsure of how to respond. He brings his glass to his lips and takes a long swig of it, tastes green all the way to the back of his throat. It’s almost impossible to imagine that in twenty-four hours he could be drinking locally-produced white wine in the Washington Corridor. Earth feels so darn far away.

“What’ll you do on your vacation, then?” Eric asks after another long stretch of silence, mostly out of politeness that his mother persistently lectured into him over years.

Jack’s attention is fixed on the moons, his profile sculpted by the sharp lines of his nose and cheekbones and chin. His eyes are so pale under the lilac moon -- big, slanted, annoyingly beautiful. He remains quiet for a moment, leans his weight on his palms and considers Eric’s question. His gaze is still flickering over the view when he says, finally, “I usually go see my parents. Read. Buy groceries.”

Eric snorts inelegantly. If he didn’t know any better, didn’t know Jack any better, that could almost be mistaken for a joke. “Buy groceries?”

“Yes,” Jack says, perfectly serious. His eyes flit over to meet Eric’s, and Eric holds them for only a moment before quickly looking away. His cheeks grow inexplicably warm. “I don’t really miss anything when I’m up here -- I mean, not really -- but I guess sometimes it’s nice to remember people. Stupid human stuff, eh? Supermarkets. Banks. I always think I'd catch a movie in the theatre but somehow I never do.”

He appears to be uncomfortable with his admission, face closing off once the words are out of his mouth. The sharp lines of his features twist back into a familiar scowl, but Eric watches them, him, thoroughly transfixed. The authentic snippet of personality cannot disappear under the reapplied mask this time; Jack has put something truthful on the table, a hint of something charmingly sentimental. A mundane humanity space can't recreate, newspapers and laundromats and coffee stands and taxes. Grocery shopping. Eric doesn’t know if the fast, erratic beating in his chest is at the sweet tinge of it, or the mere thought of Jack paying attention to such things.

“You should,” Eric finally finds his words somewhere in his strangled windpipe, slowly facing forward. Jack, and his continual ability to confuse. He can see Jack from the corner of his eye, turning his head to subtly raise both eyebrows at Eric. “Go to the movies. You should do it this time.”

“Yeah. Maybe I will,” Jack says after a long pause. “I'll tell you how it went when we’re back here.”

“If I come back,” Eric sighs before he can catch himself, and then freezes, fingers clenching around his glass. Dang it. Dang it all to hell.

“What?” Jack asks, confused, and when Eric refuses to meet his eyes, shoulders squaring and chin dropping to his chest, Jack’s voice sharpens and he repeats, “What? What do you mean? Bittle. What do you mean.”

Eric exhales unsteadily, rubbing his forehead with the back of his free hand. He thought he'd have more time. He thought -- like he always does, and is always wrong -- that he’d successfully outrun his problems by denying their existence. He could try shoving those four incriminating words back into his mouth, but Eric can feel Jack’s intense attention focused on the side of his face. Once Jack stepped back into the professional boots of Commander Zimmermann, no denial will make him let this go.

“I’m spending all of my leave in Texas. I gotta pass evaluation for the clearance to come back here with y’all. These past six months were my test run -- I’ve never passed the written exam.” Eric drags his shoe through the sandy ground, watches as the grooves he makes are swept away. “Y’all know I’m no good at the sciency stuff, Jack, alright. I don't need to hear it from you as well. If I don't get an adequate score I'm off the program for good.”

Eric chews the inside of his cheek and chances a side glance. Jack looks outraged, his thick brows drawn down and his entire face devoid of color. Eric’s immediate reflex is to flinch away, but Jack speaks before he can make a move. “What subjects?”

“What?” Eric asks, thrown completely off-balance. He was expecting a thundering reprimand at worst, an indifferent dismissal at best. He doesn’t know what the quiet, heated response he's gotten even is.

"What subjects are they testing you on?”

Eric hesitates, body still braced for the blow that isn't coming. “Uh. All of the introductory subjects. Basic physics, geobiology... mostly modern astronomy. But I swear --”

“Alright,” Jack cuts him off with a single sharp nod, his chin sticking out slightly, like Eric has somehow pushed him to make up his mind. His expression, typically impassive, is now staggeringly transparent. “I’ll help you study for the written exam.”

“What?" Eric blinks several times, glances down to see if he's had more to drink than he thought, but the glass is still half-full and Jack's figure is still corporeal by his side, intense expression still in place. He doesn't fade away like the hallucination Eric is so sure he must be. "Jack -- what --?”

Jack doesn't seem to pick up on the astonishment that has Eric stumbling over his words. “We’ve got two and a half weeks, right? You need entry level stuff to pass that exam. If we study hard, you can do it.”

Eric thinks he might be gaping, his mouth hanging open and growing dry in the arid air, but he apparently isn't capable of collecting his jaw off of Vylos’ ground. “But… what… but you’ll be in Canada…?”

“I’ll stay in Huston,” Jack looks determined. “Bittle, we're a team. You should’ve told us before and we would’ve helped you. You’re a strong crew member, you’re smart, you’ve got an edge that none of us has got. If that’s the only thing holding you back we’re going to get you over it. Study clinic, day and night.” He pauses, the self-assurances faltering for only a moment, and the lines of his mouth soften somewhat. “Just trust me, okay?”

Eric is absolutely floored. The only foolish thing that manages to leave his mouth is, “What about going to the movies?”

Jack almost smiles. Eric has spied that expression on rare occasions before, but never directed at him, and never from up close. It does something to Jack's face that Eric can't put in words. “I’ll catch one on the next leave. Which you’ll be taking as well, ‘cause you’re not leaving the program. We've got each other's backs, Bittle.”

Under the moonlight, purple shadows carving his face from marble and a mellow half-smile twisting the corners of his mouth upwards, Eric could almost let himself admit how handsome Jack is. Jack rubs the dirt off of one palm and slowly curls his fingers, holds them up in a silent offer. Eric can see the thin veins beneath the surface of his skin. He looks at the hand, looks up at Jack, and lets a tentative smile blossom on his face. He brings his clenched hand up to meet Jack’s, and bumps his fist.

#zimbits #omgcp #omgcheckplease #zimbits fic #it is the space fic! they are in space!#i cleaned up the first chapter if anyone wants to reread or catch up #check please!#jack x bitty #pavfics #okay great this is a series now. i'm SORRY

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sindri42 · 4 years ago

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Sindri I don't actually believe it for the reasons you described. While I do believe that only one planet in the trillions of planets and systems and universes is the only one to support intelligent life is a mathematical impossibility, I do not believe we've had any true contact with those other intelligences yet.

The thing I can’t stop thinking about re: alien contact is just how much human advancement has accelerated in the past few years. It took about two million years to progress from stone tools to copper, then less than 2,000 to go to iron. The steam engine started less than 500 years ago, Turing described the principles of a computer as we understand it 84 years ago, the smartphone has existed for less time than I personally have been alive... the length of time that we’ve been at a “modern” tech level compared to the length of time humanity has existed is miniscule.

And so, if there isn’t some higher power forcing different cultures to develop at pretty much the same rates, any given population of aliens will either be essentially cavemen compared to us, or so far advanced beyond us that their technology might as well be straight up magic.

Now, in human history, whenever a lot tech culture and a high tech culture have met, things did not go well for the more primitive party. Even when we don’t openly try to kill each other, the competition for limited resources starves the less capable group or forces them further and further away from their old territories. Imagine a modern military fighting against, say, a WWII army. Our tanks could probably take on forces that outnumber them a hundred to one without much issue, and that’s before you even consider the idea of drone strikes, cruise missiles, and other game-changing gadgets that didn’t exist last time we fought a real war. Outside of a very narrow set of extremely lucky circumstances in humanity’s favor, we would be completely at the mercy of a technologically superior alien culture, with nothing to do but pray that they’re better people than we are.

Hell, even human-on-human warfare is probably an inappropriate comparison. Consider the wolf: for primitive humans, it was a threat to livestock, to children. In places like Japan and Europe, where humans gained the ability to eliminate this threat, wolves went extinct virtually overnight. Today, we consider them beautiful creatures and work to preserve those which are left... but that's only because they no longer present any real threat to humans, because we’ve grown so strong that they are no longer considered competition. That state might be the best we can hope for with aliens. to be labelled as “Mostly Harmless” and made the subjects of study by curious biologists and characters in poorly researched entertainment media.

As for why we haven’t met any aliens yet, there are a few possibilities:

First is that space is big, really big, and FTL is either much more difficult than sci-fi portrays it to be, or literally impossible even with technology millennia beyond our own. That would mean that even the most advanced culture would expand at just short of the speed of light, sending out generation ships or self-replicating probes, likely encasing one star after another in dyson spheres or something similar in order to harvest enough energy to support an extremely dense population and all their toys. We haven’t met them because they didn’t happen to evolve in any of our closest neighbor systems; if they ever do reach us we will have plenty of warning before they get here, but once they arrive they’ll likely harvest everything of value that we have in an effort to stave off the consequences of endless overpopulation.

Second is that we’re beneath their notice. There are easier things to mine than earth, like all those precious asteroids floating around, so they have no reason to come where we could perceive them other than sheer curiosity. If we ever develop to the point where we become real competition, we will likely get squashed immediately, but there’s a slim chance that we could make the jump in tech level all the way from ‘not worth considering’ to ‘credible opponent’ fast enough to survive.

Third is they know we’re here, but have a specific reason to avoid us. Maybe they’re an ultra-conformist culture worried about memetic contamination if they even talk to us. Maybe they’re scientists at heart, with pure curiosity taking precedence over any practical value to be gained, watching to see what we do next while carefully avoiding contaminating the sample. Maybe their thought processes just lead to behavior we would consider ultra-pacifistic.

Fourth is that we got very lucky, and were actually the first ones to make it this far, at least in this part of this galaxy. In that case, all the horror stories above will likely happen when we fly out and encounter the local primitives, but humanity will be standing on the other side of the equation.

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reading-writing-revolution · 4 years ago

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This is truly magnificent analysis. It's a bit of a long read, but it is ABSOLUTELY magically clarifying. I'll include my thoughts in a follow-up because this is perfectly in line with something I've been thinking about for a while.

Buckle up, this one is a bit of a roller coaster.

Let’s talk population density.

Do you know the population density of the zip code you live in?

What about the population density of where you spent your formative years?

That’s a bit of a rhetorical question, because I’m guessing the answer is no. I certainly didn’t, so I’d be impressed and surprised if I asked someone this question in casual conversation and they rattled off the number to me.

I’d never thought about population density until I traveled to India in 2018. We flew into Mumbai which has a population density of 75,000 people per sq. mi. To give you some perspective, NYC has 27,000 per sq. mi. (post originally said 10,431people but that is per sq. km. not mi.) and as most of my friends are familiar with King of The Hammers, in Johnson Valley, when Hammertown doesn’t exist, it has a population density of 15.2 people per sq. mi.

Mumbai has the highest population density of any city in the world, and until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to describe. If you have ever been in the first 10 rows of a sold-out standing room only concert, that is as close as I can relate to how people move through the streets of Mumbai. There is literally no such thing as personal space. Not for you, not for your vehicle. I think one of the most fascinating things our entire group realized in Mumbai is whatever you do, do NOT stop. Merge in, merge out, but sudden stops cause pile ups of humans, vehicles, etc. Everything is in fluid motion, when you step into the stream you go with the current, when you need to leave the stream you move to the edges and hop out. What was also interesting was the lack of rage or frustration we saw, and the lack of accidents! I don’t think I saw two people yell at each other the entire time we were there. Same with car accidents, I saw one slight bumper brush. Nothing worth stopping over, as every car had marks from similar encounters.

You would think with so much closeness fights would break out often, accidents would be on every corner. But something strange happens. There is no space for the individual in that type of population density. If you wanted to stop and be mad or outraged, you would literally be trampled. So you move with the flow, or you step outside of it. One person cannot go against the current and be successful, individual needs simply cannot matter for society to function in that type of population density. This is different from NYC where you do see individuals disagree on street corners. Because even as dense as NYC is there is room for the individual. Even our most densely populated cities are nothing compared to other countries. America has space and the individual has rights.

When this country was founded the population density of even our biggest cities was a fraction of large cities in Europe. Which is why our constitution so heavily outlines the liberties and freedoms of the individual compared to places like England where their population density even today is 10 times that of the United States as a whole.

Ever since news of the pandemic broke I’ve found myself fascinated with population density in the US. This fascination started because it seemed obvious to me that the transmission of COVID would happen far faster in our highest population density areas of the country. Wikipedia has a list of cities by population density. Here’s how the top 20 most dense cities breaks down: 9 in New Jersey (NYC metro area),4 in CA (LA metro area), 3 in NY (NYC metro area), 2 in Florida (Miami metro area), 1 in Mass (Boston metro area), and 1 in Kentucky (Louisville). Except for Kentucky these population dense areas directly correlate to the highest areas of infection in the country.

But my fascination with population density didn’t stop at the pandemic. I wanted to understand population densities of different areas. I started looking up places I’d lived and visited that felt both dense and sparse population wise. It should come as no surprise that cities are always the most dense and rural areas are always the most sparse.

Then as the mask debate started unfolding in my newsfeed, I found myself loosely assigning a population density to people as they made their stance on masks known. Those that lived in higher population densities were usually more for masks than those who lived in less population dense areas.

Again, this made sense. Those that live in cities encounter more people in a day going about their routine. If they live in high-density housing, they share elevators, stairwells, mailrooms, lobbies, etc. The needs of the individual matter less the higher the density, so fighting the mask goes against the stream. You can do it, but it’s not easy.

Those I know that live more rural were less inclined to want to wear masks. I’ve found a general rule of thumb in casual conversation is if you can walk to your nearest market (even if it’s a gas station or 7/11), you understand the need for a mask. If you MUST drive to your nearest market, you likely don’t have to encounter many people in a day if you choose not to, and masks feel like just another unnecessary restriction imposed by the government. The individual has more freedoms and rejects government oversight more the lower the population density.

At some point this year I saw some people sharing an image of the US broken up by red states (Republican) vs. blue states (Democrat), compared to a map of COVID cases. At the time, the blue states almost directly correlated to where the highest COVID outbreaks were happening. The conclusion those sharing this map were trying to draw was that COVID was political and made up by the political leaders of blue states. It was largely those living in unaffected areas sharing this map and drawing these conclusions.

What I took from these images was that the higher the density the more likely an area was to be run by Democrats. Which lead me down a rabbit hole. Apparently, someone named Dave Troy noticed the same thing, and wrote an interesting article based on the 2012 election between Obama and Romney. 98% of the 50 most dense counties voted Obama. 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted Romney.

And this Dave guy sounds like someone I would enjoy having a discussion with. Because this data drew him to the same question I had. Where is the crossover point in population density between those that vote Republican vs. those that vote Democrat? The data says that at about 800 people per sq. mi. people switch from voting primarily Republican to voting primarily Democrat. Below 800 people per sq. mi. there is a 66% chance that you voted Republican in 2012. The data doesn’t appear much different in the following years.

So why does this matter? Because how you were raised and how you live has a huge impact on what matters to you from your politicians and your government.

Those I know that grew up in less dense areas had to be self-reliant. When calling 911 means you’re likely waiting 20 minutes or longer for police, an ambulance, or a fire truck. You have to be able to defend yourself, handle your own first aid, and rely on your neighbors to help in critical emergency situations. When I tell people in Southern California that where I grew up had volunteer firefighters and EMTs they don’t believe me.

The more rural you are, the less you rely on government entities for your day-to-day needs. The most rural have well water, septic systems, take their trash to the dump, if it snows, they have a vehicle that can plow, and the truly rural use propane for power and heat. They are not reliant on most services provided by the public utilities. They use guns as tools to protect their animals and their family from prey and from vermin. They do not really encounter homeless people, as even the poorest can usually find a shack to live out of and require a vehicle to get around. These people in less dense areas do not depend on the government to solve their problems. They’d prefer government stay out of their lives completely. Less taxes, less oversight, less being told what to do. To the rural, it seems like every time the government interferes in their life, they lose another freedom, and their quality of life diminishes.

Those I know that grew up in more dense areas are used to calling 911 to handle emergencies. Their streets are swept in the summer and plowed in the winter. Their trash is picked up on the same day weekly. They don’t have space for cars and tools, so they tend to take public transportation or walk. They call someone when something breaks that requires tools they don’t own. They are used to encountering the homeless on the streets as part of their daily life. The truly poor and homeless usually end up in cities as the services to help the sick, mentally ill and the poorest among us are more available in dense areas. So the wealthy interact with the poor in cities far more than they do in rural areas. Those in higher density areas are willing to pay for government services because they are a regular part of their daily lives and make life more manageable. Without these services, the quality of life they know would not exist.

This got me thinking about some research I did a few years ago, when I learned that the average American only lives 18 miles from their mother. Those in NY and PA only live on average 8 miles from their mothers. From Kentucky to Louisiana the average is 6 miles. Less than 20% of Americans live more than a few hours drive from mom. The further you move from home depends greatly on your education and income. For the most part, the wealthier you are, the more you can pay for child and elder care, making it easier to travel further from home. Also, the more educated, the more likely you are to travel to utilize your education in a specialized career field.

So what does this have to do with population density? Most Americans never leave the population density we were raised in. Why does this matter? Because that means most Americans can’t understand or relate to the needs of those that live in population densities that differ from their own.

My friends that have been raised in cities see guns primarily as a source of violence. My friends that live rurally see guns as a necessary tool for their way of life. My friends that have been raised rurally don’t understand the need for taxes and government services, where they come from you take care of your own problems. My friends that live in cities, could not imagine a life without public utilities and governmental oversight of social problems.

Neither are wrong. Their needs and perspective are just vastly different.

I also realized that I’m probably in a small percentage of the American population. I have spent the last 20 years living more than 2500 miles from my closest family members, which puts me into the 20% category plus I was raised and lived in both high density population areas and low density population areas throughout my life.

Here’s my life by population density:

Age: 0-10 Zip: 14613 Pop Dens: 7323.5 people per sq. mi.

Age: 11-18 Zip: 14468 Pop Dens: 345 people per sq. mi.

Age: 18-22 Zip: 14850 Pop Dens: 5,722 people per sq. mi.

Age: 25-32 Zip: 92606 Pop Dens: 4,913 people per sq. mi.

Age: 33-43 Zip: 91773/91750 Pop Dens 2,163/1245 people per sq. mi.

I went to inner city schools as a young child. I was upset that my mother could not put my hair in corn rows with the pretty beads like my friends wore. I learned civil rights songs taught to me by our bi-racial music teacher and came home and sang them for my disapproving father who was raised in Shinglehouse, PA with a population density of 26.5 people per sq. mi.

Then at the age of 11 my family moved out of the city and into the country. We lived on 20+ acres of land and the population was 98% white. I didn’t walk to school anymore, heck, we didn’t really walk to our neighbor’s house because country roads don’t have sidewalks.

Then I went away to college for 4 years where I lived part of that time on the 11th floor of a tower, with a shared elevator, lobby, and I didn’t own a car. I walked everywhere, took the bus or would grab a ride from my few friends with cars if it wasn’t feasible to take public transportation.

After college I moved to Southern California. I spent my first 10 years as an adult mostly living in condos and townhomes in wealthier higher density areas, where I would say the majority leaned slightly left, but there was a fiscally conservative undertone. But I spent most weekends taking my Jeep to lower population density areas to live a life more closely to what I had on the farm growing up. Less government oversights. No one ticketing my Jeep for a few stickers as a commercial vehicle, etc.

Currently, I live in Los Angeles County, one of the highest populations in the country. But I live in one of the lowest density zip codes within that county. We have horse property and rodeos, and one of the only country bars in Southern California. Our population is almost completely split down the middle between left and right. I don’t have a sidewalk but a half a mile down the road they do. I can walk to the 7/11 and the subway around the corner but need to drive to the closest grocery store.

I’ve come to realize that just about every polarizing debate I see my friends having; I can see both sides of the argument. And I’m starting to suspect it’s because I’ve lived in both their worlds. I can relate and understand their needs and where they are coming from because I’ve experienced each of their way of life to a certain extent. Most in this country are raised one way and live that way for life. And how we want to live really comes down to the population density in which we have existed.

I truly believe our population density experience matters more to our political views than education, income, race, gender or sexuality.

As a society we are so wrapped up in left vs. right. Liberal vs. conservative. We figure out which we identify with and lump every social/political issue we agree with into “our” category, and everyone we disagree with into “their” category. I don’t see this really helping us hear each other any better. It more results in people trying to prove why they are right.

Since I’ve started considering people’s population density experiences in life (if I know them and have a reasonable idea) I have found a new filter with which to view information that is far more conducive to understanding their point of view than the filters we currently use.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

And while I think there’s some truth to that, travel in Mark Twain’s day and age is different than how we travel today. For instance, when I go to Baja, I like to stay in the small towns and eat at the local restaurants. But I have many friends that only go to all inclusive resorts, or stay in tourist areas, never venturing outside of the luxury they are there to enjoy. They don’t spend time in the rural areas seeing what life is really like. Traveling with ULTRA4 and for off road has kept me outside of most tourist areas. Where there’s only one place to stay and you have to explore local eating options. Seeing the countryside and how people live both in US and in Europe. I prefer to travel this way.

Many of us with the means to travel prefer to vacation how we live. The more rural we live day to day, the less spending a week in NYC sounds like fun. But going camping in the woods likely appeals to us. And those that live in cities, tend to not choose wilderness adventures for their downtime. The travel to help us see how other people live that existed in Twain’s time doesn’t really happen in our service oriented society where restaurants and hotels are abundant most places. We can eat at the same restaurants and sleep at the same hotels from one side of the country to the other. We’ve stopped getting outside of our own bubbles even when we travel.

I don’t know what we can do that would expose us to other ways of life like travel in Twain’s age did. But we probably need to figure it out to stop the divide from separating this country further.

From the beginning of 1900s through the Vietnam War between 7 and 9 percent of Americans were in military service. Today less than 0.5% of Americans serve in the military. That was one way that we used to expose Americans to life outside of what they grew up with. College is another way, but as costs have risen, more students continue to live at home and attend community colleges or local universities vs. leaving home to experience a different way of life between 18 and 22.

I find myself thinking about kids who go off to the army or away to college. They are forced outside their comfort zones. Some thrive there, some don’t. But they learn a different way of existing, at least for a little while. The type of travel Mark Twain is talking about. Part of me wonders if we shouldn’t offer some sort of service requirement for our youth between say 18 and 20 that requires them to get involved in something to help the country, away from where they were raised, military or civil service. If they were raised in a city, working on rural projects. If they were raised rurally, working on urban projects. Just to have a frame of reference for how diverse this country truly is and how different our needs are based on that diversity. But this is a topic for another day. You’ve already been too kind reading this far.

I don’t have the answers. But I’m glad I’ve finally put down some of the thoughts I’ve had floating around in my head regarding population density. Kudos to those of you that stuck it out.

If you’re like me and are curious about your own population density experiences, I’ve included a link in the comments where you can throw in zip codes and see what your exposure has been.

https://medium.com/@davetroy/is-population-density-the-key-to-understanding-voting-behavior-191acc302a2b

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zosonils · 5 years ago

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Okay so I have to know what your Mother 3 pokemon au is?

alright so basically it’s exactly what it says on the tin, it’s an au where the nowhere islands are a pokemon region! i haven’t figured out the entirety of the plot/whatever but i have some key points mapped out:

-boney is a growlithe, and later an arcanine. he remains a very good boy

-the nowhere islands are much more densely populated, with towns and gyms built around the majority of story locations [such as the needle locations, thunder tower, club titiboo and the factory, etc.]

-the pigmasks are of course the evil team of the game

-the magypsies are all mythical pokemon, although i haven’t sorted out which corresponds to who yet

-lucas goes on his adventure with kumatora and duster as friendly but competent rivals. think cheren and bianca from black and white

-lucas can freely talk to and understand pokemon in the same way that n does due to his psychic powers. kumatora is also capable of this, although it comes less naturally as her psychic skillset is more offense-based

-claus is a phantump and god, i spent literally two hours making this last night. i calculated all of this. everything here is 100% in line with the games. i looked up the exp formula and calculated it to be accurate. his ivs line up perfectly with the personality trait on the info screen. this is [almost] a completely normal, legal pokemon, albeit in a generation it shouldn’t be in. this is my life now

-claus absolutely insists on being part of the team for lucas’ gym challenge. they’ve probably been talking about doing their challenge together since they were kids and while this isn’t what they had in mind, a childhood promise is a childhood promise

-because i am proudly a horrible angst dragon, lucas is the first to discover claus in this state. complete emotional breakdowns and general panic ensue

-duster’s ‘thief tools’ are all pokemon. it’s a funky nickname he’s given to his team because he loves them. i’m not completely certain what the entire lineup would be but rope snake is definitely an ekans/arbok

-kumatora has a chandelure named violet

-now what on earth is that blatantly illegal electric type move doing there, huh

i think i’ve run out of things to infodump on, but i’ll probably post about this au quite a bit in the future because it’s really fun! i’m thinking that maybe i’ll try to make trainer sprites for the main characters or something along those lines

[and a bonus claus for your troubles!]

#mother 3 #pokemon #mother 3 au #lucas #claus #kumatora #duster #my art #sonic forces me to answer questions #anon #guys please i love this au so much #Anonymous

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solo1y · 6 years ago

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Pro-Israeli Bias on Quora

Special Investigation

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by users in the form of opinions. Users are expected to register their real names and report their relevant experience and qualifications.

Wikipedia taught us all that crowd-sourcing information is a great idea, and the only problem people seemed to have was that contributors to Wikipedia were anonymous and might have no expertise in the relevant area. Quora appears to have addressed these problems. Two years ago, TechCrunch reported that Quora was worth $1.8 billion with 190 million monthly users.

Throughout last year, I posted the following answer under a number of questions, all of which were variations around: “Why Does Hamas Use Human Shields?”

The last time this question was any way relevant was during the Gaza War, so most of these links refer to that conflict.

I have repeatedly been asked to justify my contention that there is “much evidence that the IDF uses human shields,” which I said in response to a slew of questions about Hamas using human shields.

There are two huge assumptions in these questions: one explicit and one implicit.

Explicit Assumption: Hamas Uses Human Shields

As Gaza is one of the most densely-populated and blockaded areas on the planet, it would be disingenuous to consider the necessary restrictions of the terrain as the use of human shields. Here we go:

Amnesty International stated that they had no evidence that Hamas was using human shields.

The BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, “saw no evidence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields”.

The Guardian reported that they had seen “no evidence that Hamas had compelled [civilians] to stay [in targeted neighbourhoods]”.

The New York Times similarly reported that there is “no evidence that Hamas and other militants force civilians to stay in areas that are under attack”.

This is not to say that Hamas definitely don’t use human shields, but it should be enough to question the explicit assumption.

Implicit Assumption: Israel Does Not Use Human Shields

The “Hamas uses human shields” argument is often presented as if it were the worst thing an army could do. That might be correct. Here we go:

Amnesty International reported that Israel used children as human shields in Gaza.

There are many first-hand witness account of the IDF using human shields: Euro-Med Documents Israel’s Use of Human Shields in Gaza

Ha'aretz reported how the IDF used Palestinian children as human shields.

Reuters reported on how Israelis regularly use Palestinian children as human shields.

Again, this is not to say that the IDF definitely uses human shields, but it should be enough to question the implicit assumption.

It’s certainly provocative, and it may contain information that a lot of people in the Middle East commentary space are either unaware of, or strongly disagree with. However, everything is sourced, and the argument is logically sound.

The post has been deleted by Quora a number of times, both on my personal Quora blog and under relevant questions. They repeatedly claim it’s a violation of their BNBR policy, but if you click that link, I challenge any of you to tell me which part of the post violates which part of the policy. (SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t.)

While there are many articulate pro-Israeli voices whose source-free, evidence-free bigoted meanderings never seem to be censored, there are few pro-Palestinian voices, or even posters who are interested in genuine balance. Under any of these questions, there is a tidal wave of:

“Hamas forced the IDF to bomb civilians.”

“Any action of Israel is justified in self-defence.”

“Any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.”

“There are no Palestinians.”

I’m not kidding about the last one. There have been many posts arguing that Palestinians don’t exist, which seems to be as blatant an attempt to dismiss and demean an entire people as should shivers down the spine of any Israeli.

So, when the old accusation about Hamas using human shields rolled around, I made a post for some balance, very carefully-worded and using verified sources.

Given that my post is sourced, and accurate, and it does not violate any part of the BNBR policy that I can determine, and the strongest language used in it does literally nothing more than suggest that certain assumptions be questioned, I can only conclude that Quora is censoring posts critical of Israel, and can no longer be trusted as a source of crowd-sourced information on this particular issue. This is depressing, and I hope I’m wrong because I love Quora and the moderation is usually great.

This has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with either side, by the way. (I’ve blocked some particularly violent posters, but I have never reported any single pro-Israeli post for any reason, and I have reported many antisemitic posts.) Regardless of your feelings, you can’t deny that the information in my post is properly sourced and not phrased in a personally insulting manner.

I’ve complained about the pretty egregious pro-Israel bias on Quora before, but it hasn’t stopped me from answering questions about Israel the way I normally do.

Recently, I was asked to answer a question by a user I follow called Janelle Alicia Monroy, about whom I know nothing other than the fact that I liked reading her answers:

When I clicked on it, it didn’t show up. I checked Janelle’s page and this came up:

Now, Quora has a pretty high tolerance for aggressive questions, so I had no idea what might have caused this. I looked through her feed and found a prescient post:

Now you might not agree with any of that, but the whole point of Quora is that people answer questions from a variety of different sets of assumptions. Banning one entire human experience and political opinion is a terrible idea. Banning people for nothing more than having a particular opinion is a terrible idea.

Quora has had a number of users complain about the blatant and egregious pro-Israel bias in their site, but nothing’s been done about it. If anything, it’s getting worse. It’s more or less impossible to answer any meaningful question about the occupied territories honestly without being flagged.

Recently, this happened:

Even more recently, a question asking why Jewish human rights groups would oppose Zionism was deleted.

And on and on.

As Quora moderation refuse to engage about this, and all comments even mentioning this refusal are deleted, my avenues of protest are limited to pointing it out off-platform, and tagging the jokes I make under Quora questions with “I Still Haven’t Been Kicked Off Quora”.

If you’ve had a similar experience with Quora, or a completely different experience, or you have any idea how to get a response from the normally active admin team, or you are a member of the Quora admin team, please let me know.

If you are interested in countering any of the arguments I make here, don’t bother. This post is not about Israeli human rights abuses, it’s about unaddressed political bias in Quora. I promise you there are plenty of other posts I make on this topic where you should feel welcome to answer in any manner you see fit.

#Quora #Palestine #Israel #bias

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pablo-neurotic · 6 years ago

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I’m visiting the United States this week! Currently, I’m staying with my best friend in Denver, Colorado, and, having been in Taiwan for about a year, I’ve noticed a few things in America-land: 1.) There are so many old buildings! Nothing in Taipei is old. Well there are very few historic buildings. But here--I’m in the Capital Hill area--it’s like every building is at least one hundred years old. 2.) It is sooooo spacious here! Taiwan is an island, so space is at a premium. It’s really densely populated and is built up. I mean that literally, buildings tower over you and there are no spaces between them. There’s so much space in the US. But though this is usually aesthetically pleasing, I’m not sure it’s necessarily a good thing. My friend has been complaining a lot about how crowded the city is because lots of people are moving here. On one hand, I’m like oh no this is totally fine. You don’t know crowded! But on the other hand, I know that the housing market is skyrocketing. And part of the problem is that all the properties are one-hundred-year-old single-family homes. It’s not an efficient use of space. 3.) There are so many homeless people. I’m not complaining--I’m sympathetic, in fact--but it makes me realize that I’m not sure there are any homeless people in Taipei. Of course, I’m sure there are other factors--maybe homeless people are simply less visible in Taiwan because of cultural values. But after some googling, I do think there are more homeless people in Denver than there are in Taipei. And Taipei is a lot bigger. It’s strange because the US is a much wealthier country than Taiwan, but there’s more of a wealth disparity.

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trekwiz · 4 years ago

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UBI anon here (💚). I understand your position on UBI and I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I suppose my verdict on it is still out. But I’m an asshole, and love advocating for the devil... To me, your positioning is quite interesting. Especially considering the reasoning behind the Corona virus stipulations... as I could use the same logic during normal years to justify a UBI as part of the role of governance. (I.e. Lack of livable wages -> crime -> government duty) (crime affects all)

Hi anon. I apologize in advance for the long post.

I would address your comment in three parts: first on the difference between population and personal issues, second in terms of defining "need" in regards to government duty, and third in regards to personal rights.

I would suggest there needs to be a pretty bright line between population issues and individual issues in regards to government action. When that line is blurred, we get really weird agenda-driven communal values. As I mentioned in my previous answer, that is especially apparent to LGBT people who were on the receiving end of that logic.

I'm not sure if you saw the news and public reaction when gay kids finally started demanding the right to participate in dances with same sex partners in the early 00's. But schools and communities argued for a communal value that went something like this, "We need to protect our children from becoming gay, so these gay kids should sacrifice a bit of joy for the good of everyone."

Ultimately, the country was meeting the needs and desires of one group, at the expense and detriment of another. They chose who has to lose something, without their consent.

No one ever sees themselves as the bad guy. Universally, your beliefs are protective, or positive in some way, from your perspective. It's very easy to argue for a personal bias/agenda to be seen under the lens of collective behavior, when there's no reason it should be seen as anything but an individual desire.

Any individual concern can be reframed to appear as a population issue by focusing on numbers. Having eggs for breakfast wasn't a personal experience; millions of people had eggs for breakfast. But having eggs for breakfast really was a personal choice, and it didn't impact my neighbor; having eggs didn't make them eat eggs. The outcome was the same, but the decision was independent. As another example, it's the difference between listening to loud music on a farm, vs listening to loud music in a densely packed apartment complex. One is inherently a personal action, and the other is inherently communal.

A virus is inherently communal. Individual protections, at least with this kind of virus, are impossible. Your behaviors won't protect yourself; there is nothing you can do to avoid getting infected by acting alone--unless you're super rich and can hide in a bunker for a few years.

And, like the loud music in an apartment complex, your behaviors have a distinct impact on other people. It might sound dramatic, but you literally have the power to determine if someone else dies, or ends up with a lifelong disability. There's a distinct, and undeniable communal need, and it's similar to the reason we ban indoor smoking. While it's a soundbite, the old standard, "your right to swing your first ends at my nose" is the driving force here: once your behavior affects others, it's up to you to change, not them. By taking actions that hurt other people, you're infringing on their right not to participate--it's a decision you don't get to make.

On the second point, I would suggest linking government to crime via livable wages muddies the idea of governmental need in a particularly dangerous way. I briefly suggested that police don't need to be militarized, and so that's not a necessary government expense. I'll expand on that as an example, as I think it demonstrates how a muddy standard like that can be abused.

Those who have come to defend police brutality and a police state suggest that military equipment is necessary for police because it protects them. Their job necessarily involves danger that puts their lives at risk. Protecting law enforcement officers is certainly a government interest; they spend money on training, and wages theoretically correlate to experience that would be lost when an officer dies. Military equipment protects the people and the investment.

But is it necessary? Necessity is a combination of factors, with no one being the sole decider--and this list isn't exclusive, just a good start to the conversation. Does it make them more effective? Can the same goal be achieved through alternative means? Will the government cease to function in an important way if it doesn't have this funding?

When we examine militarized police in that lens, it doesn't really meet the standard for necessity. They're less effective when they have this kind of equipment: they increase violence and violent crime in communities as an instigating force, and they decrease communal trust, which necessarily impacts their ability to investigate real crimes in the future. It also encourages vigilante justice when the police are seen as this ineffective and untrustworthy--people are circumventing the law, which has a serious impact on governance.

The intended goal can be achieved through alternative means; there's good science around de-escalation tactics, and they're known to work in other developed countries. Ending the arms race between criminals and police generally reduces overall violence rates, and is protective to communities. And by foregoing the funding for militarized gear, no function of governance has been impacted. Laws will still be enforced; there's no negative impact on governance. The idea that it's a "need" is weak; it serves a personal agenda, not a necessary governmental function.

During a pandemic, there's a strong argument for governmental need for UBI. I won't outline all of the reasons, I'll stick with the most easy to apply one: if every member of government does everything right, someone in their community who didn't have the means to stay home could still infect them. If we think only about those we can reasonably care about, (so, assuming we're all unswayed by the impact of Trump being infected because--well, fuck that fascist) what happens if CDC employees become compromised due to an infection in the community, and that infection spreads throughout the agency?

The impact isn't temporary or localized. We'll be losing a large amount of expertise necessary for running the agency. An agency that works solely to protect populations, rather than individuals. The expertise that could prevent another botched pandemic response would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, with people who may not even be familiar with the relevant government processes. That will necessarily impact the government and the public for an extended period of time. We're already feeling some of that impact just from it being merely mismanaged (maliciously); imagine how much worse it would be if that expertise were simply wiped out and not available again when Trump is out of office?

UBI is an effective way to back up a stay at home order, and other similar precautions. It means bills won't go unpaid, and people can still eat. They won't be forced to choose between eating and preventing spread; if they're in a position where they can't choose to stay home, that risk to government personnel remains. There isn't really a great alternative; suspending regular bills won't reduce the need to pay for food, and deferring payments only increases the risk of someone needing to defy stay at home orders to prevent bankruptcy later. And depending on who is impacted--which is hard to predict--parts of government can cease to function without it, during a pandemic. A pandemic of this nature could theoretically wipe out the whole judicial branch of government, as an example. That would be disastrous.

Under situation normal, there's no real argument to be made for a government need. There are other ways to reduce crime, especially from a regulatory standpoint. Education is a start--and preventing education funding from being tied to property taxes is a good way to ensure poor communities don't get stuck in a cycle of poverty fed by poor education. Putting money into infrastructure explicitly meant to undo the impact of redlining would help.

And if you've tried to apply for a job in the last 15 years, you know there's a lot the government should be doing in regards to regulation and enforcement of labor laws. The issues leading to unlivable wages are relatively well known. It's no secret that many companies are using illegal unpaid internships (unpaid internships are only legal under a narrow set of criteria), or are misclassifying employees as contractors--which is a serious tax evasion scam at the worker's expense.

There are no enforcement mechanisms against companies that advertise these practices until a worker complains about it, even if they state their intentions to ignore the law in a job listing. And sometimes--with Uber as an example of a company breaking long-standing law about employee classification--enforcement doesn't happen unless workers spend a lot of their own money suing.

Stronger minimum wage laws tied to the local cost of living (and by local, I mean reasonable commute--employees should not be expected to live an hour+ away from where they work because the company doesn't want to pay them enough to live locally) is a good start, but the loopholes related to that need to be closed.

For example, companies react to wage increases by cutting hours and hiring more people in retaliation--there's no real need to do it, it's just an excuse to coerce employees into acting against their own interests. The true impact on pricing from reasonable wages is negligible. One possibility is to lock the ratio between part time employees and full time employees, with some exceptions based on necessity. If you have 4 part-time cashiers, you can probably do well with 2 full-time cashiers.

Whereas a workplace that needs extra bodies for a short period of time--for example, maybe a facilities management office that sometimes handles construction will need additional people to transport and handle materials every so often, but not regularly--should be able to operate that way with evidence that there's truly a need.

Arguably, a shorter work week would make a difference as well. 40 hours is a lot to begin with, and some salaried people are regularly working 50-60 without additional pay. Balancing a living wage for a 30 hour week would greatly assist people in getting more education to aim for even better paying jobs. And the additional leisure time should reduce the stresses that lead to crime.

Hiring practices are currently obtuse, and a lot of resumes are never seen by a human. Banning the use of screening by ATSes (and by people unfamiliar with the relevant field--a scientist shouldn't be screened out by an HR employee who failed intro biology) could make hiring a bit more fair for everyone. And blinding interviews as much as reasonable could help--look up information about how gender ratios started to become more even when orchestras switched to blind interviews using carpeted floors, it's really interesting. (The sound of heels on hard surfaces led to decreased hiring of women when blinding alone was in use.)

I'd even suggest that a wage ratio cap would be reasonable. Largely because it doesn't prevent the top members of a company from making unlimited money, so long as they pull up everyone below them.

And it all necessarily needs to include regulation and enforcement against predatory lending practices in regards to student loans, housing, and "payday loans." Crime and poverty are a complex interaction of systems, and you can't choose just one area to focus on.

Back to the point: there are alternative ways to solve the underlying problem. It doesn't necessarily make the government more effective: it's addressing one facet of crime when a coordinated effort against multiple causes could do it better through acts of governance*. And ultimately, parts of the government won't fail because it doesn't have UBI.

*I'm generally very uncomfortable when the government takes action that's outside of "governance." That kind of behavior is too easily abused by personal agendas. Governance is, generally, regulation and enforcement. When you creep out of that scope, you get into my third point: infringement of personal rights (in contexts that are personal and not population).

Ultimately, we're not a hive-mind; we're not a collective. While issues with a population-scale impact should necessitate individual action, the status quo should have the minimal impact on our ability to lead our lives as we see fit.

We've lost our understanding of what the freedom of religion clause of the 1st amendment is about. It was meant to put a barrier between religion and government, so the government couldn't coerce you, even minimally (like, say, the 10 commandments in a courthouse), to follow someone else's religious beliefs. But there's an underlying "why" there.

If I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because my religion demands it, or I force you to eat Key Lime Pie because it's simply my favorite dessert, is there a difference? The clause was created not because forcing religion on others, in specific, is bad. It was created because religion was a common method of forcing your way of life onto someone else, and that is bad.

It's couched in secular terms, but UBI is based on a set of personal beliefs about how we should behave, with an underlying assumption that we should all be collectivist. It compels collective financial support on an issue with a personal scope. I've seen how that plays out, when homophobia was a communal value. And it's the most easily abused model of governance.

You win, so you get to have your personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Great. But then you lose, and your opponent now has the power and means to have their personal values made standard for the next 2-8 years. Trump should be a caution against this mindset; the things you think you're doing for good, offers someone like him the power to do similar things for bad. You want to give out a basic wage, Trump wants to give out militarized weaponry to police and Nazis.

A system that permits personal belief to be the driving force of tax and government policy is a system that permits these kinds of wild, dangerous swings. Gerrymandering is the result of a system that empowers personal beliefs to rule over others.

As a final thought, consider this: in the US, something like UBI could be weaponized by people like Trump. Take part in protests? Sorry, no more income for you. Formed a union? You're not eligible. The government agent who sends the UBI payment has religious-based bigotry against gay people? Sorry, they have a right not to pay you. You're writing politically "hostile" news? You and all of your coworkers have just lost a significant chunk of your income. Convicted of a felony? Income suspended, sorry, good luck staying out of prison.

If your ability to survive is heavily tied to a government payment, AND the system permits and encourages personal beliefs to be a valid reason to guide government policy, marginalized people will always have the most to lose.

#asks #ask trekwiz #anon asks #anon #ask

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zdravstvuysclntse · 7 years ago

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Lets talk about DEATH, baby.

Yo.

I don’t suppose any of you remember me talking about certain stages/types of death that a Representative can ‘die’? Well, if not, that’s no issue since I’m going to go through most of it here in more detail, mostly for me so I can stick it into my lore page later, but also so you guys can know what the fuck I’m talking about. So, for me now, the overall idea is that Reps on all positions on the ‘ladder’ (which is something I write about in section 2 here) have certain fail-safes when it comes to dying. This species (particularly the Reps with less land and people) is literally equipped for and prepared against death in every single way, it’s ridiculous, but they kinda have to be because of what they are, they’re incredibly durable for the sake of the land, society and people they represent. But like I’ve stated before, they aren’t invincible. They can be killed, they can be struck down, and due to extreme circumstances they can be dissolved altogether.

Now keep in mind, I am talking about death that occurs due to the Representative’s land being under attack/destroyed, this can range between anything from a war to a natural disaster, but anything tragic relating to the land will have an effect on the Representative, even if they are dependent on the humans who developed that land. That developed land is still - well - them.

In any case! This whole post is about the certain stages of death that a Rep can go through before they hit suspension, which again is something I talk about here; x (check out section 4, where as you can see I’ve made a start on writing about this). At the moment, I have two types/stages that they can experience, suspension is the third and worst type of death, one that only occurs in dire circumstances. For example, with Nonna, she was plunged into suspension thanks to pretty much the whole of Murmansk being destroyed in the early 1940′s, a huge part of her land was damaged, so she needed to shut down completely in order to heal properly. However, as mentioned before, this is the third and final type, there are two other types I need to quickly go through with you guys, only if you’re interested, of course!

Type 1: Lockdown.

This first type is the most harmless, but it’s also arguably the strangest to watch. It is owed to serious but not catastrophic incidents that occur on their land. For example, if a bridge were to collapse, or a gas/petrol station were to explode, all of this depends on how big or small the Rep in question is. The effects may last for a shorter amount of time and may be less severe if the Rep is a large and densely populated City, but you would find the opposite in a smaller City, Town or Hamlet Rep. It all depends on the amount of land they have to their name.

If such a situation were to arise, a Representative may go into Type 1, or ‘Lockdown’. They can still blink, breathe and move, but their brain has gone numb, and has - in a way, shut down temporarily. Type 1 may also result in a loud, high-pitched ringing in their ears - similar to tinnitus. This almost stroke-like state is due to the Representative’s brain and body reacting to the incident at hand. Their land is traumatised, their people panicked, their brain therefore has to take its time to process the damage that has been done. Luckily, Type 1 tends to only last for a few minutes, even in extreme cases, the Representative will only be under for around 15 minutes, and after they come round, they are a little shaken up, but otherwise healthy.

Occasionally, giving them water or something very sweet to eat or drink has been proved to help one through Type 1, but it is a question of whether or not they’ll be able to swallow it due to this ‘Lockdown’. Type 1 is quite common among smaller Cities and Towns, the whole species treats it as quite a minor inconvenience (in comparison to what has happened to their land and people) since it lasts for such a short amount of time, some have even mastered the ability to overcome the lockdown to the best of their ability, and work through it, but it’s all down to the severity of the disaster, and of course, the Representative themselves. Just like with humans, some of them are far better at dealing with this kind of thing than others.

Type 2: Drop-Dead.

Type 2 - the second and final type before Suspension sets in - is known by, and referred to by Representatives as the ‘drop-dead’ type. Unlike Type 1, Type 2′s effects are much quicker to take hold, and far, far more aggressive once they do.

Though the name would imply it, Type 2 doesn’t actually involve death, but the way in which it takes hold of a Representative make it seem as though they have died on the spot. In actuality, the most Type 2 will ever do to a Representative is knock them unconscious, however their heart rate and blood flow may slow down, which sometimes results in them experiencing a mild case of ‘starting up’ which is something I’ve talked about before - it ain’t pretty. But this is the only known side effect of Type 2 that they experience.

Type 2 is brought on by a larger scale catastrophes and natural disasters, because of this, Nation Representatives experience this type far more often than they do Type 1, more often than not, because of their size, Type 1 does not have any impact on them. On the other hand, Representatives who are smaller/lower down the ladder than Cities and Nations often skip Type 2 altogether, as a large disaster such as the ones that trigger Type 2 may be strong enough to put them in suspension, again it is all down to their size. Type 2 doesn’t take much more explanation, in a nutshell, seconds after the initial disaster occurs, the Representative effected by it collapses, out of the blue and completely without warning, it is instantaneous. Though they may appear ‘dead’ due to their slow - almost nonexistent breathing, Type 2 will only ever cause them to faint, but unlike Type 1, the effected Representative is unable to communicate or respond to anything or anyone around them.

Type 2 can last anywhere between an hour or half an hours. Very occasionally you may get the odd case where the effects last longer, but only if the disaster that has occurred is absolutely dire. As I mentioned before, a Rep’s heart rate, organ functionality and blood flow may slow down in order for the body to focus most of its energy on mending the damage that has been inflicted to them by the disaster, since most if not all of Type 2′s damage done to a Representative is internal. This ‘delay’ if you can call it that, may cause them some discomfort when they wake up, as their body needs time to ‘warm up/start up’ again. However, the start up process is nowhere near as severe as it can get after suspension, which is the third and final Type, and is explained in part 4 of my lore page: x

Keep in mind that my lore page is in need of a revamp, so ignore the bits in part 4 where I mention 4 types of death/suspension, I’ve knocked it down to three since then!

SO! All in all, those are my ideas, those are the newly revamped suspension ‘Types’, and I hope this isn’t too confusing. As always, y’all can always ask me about this stuff if the way I’ve written it isn’t clear. But I’m glad that I’ve finally written it down at least, I hope I’ll be able to actually add it to my lore page soon.

#hEY HOWY HEY #It is I with #fucking pages worth of lore #y'all don't have to read this obviously but it IS Here #death tw #You know so much about me. Ooh! You could even write my biography! (Headcanons/Lore.)#ooc

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superseraphim7 · 7 years ago

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Our Ancient Galactic Heritage Alex Collier: I want to talk to you about Lyrae and how the human race colonized our galaxy. Based on the age of the Suns and the planets in our galaxy, it was decided that the human life form was to be created in the Lyran system. The human race lived there for approximately 40 million years, evolving. The orientation of the human race in Lyrae was agricultural in nature. Apparently, we were very plentiful and abundant, and lived in peace. Then, one day, huge craft appeared in the sky. A large ship came out of the huge craft and approached the planet Bila, and reptilians from Alpha Draconis disembarked. Apparently, the Alpha Draconians and the Lyrans were afraid of each other. I told you before that the Alpha Draconians were apparently the first race in our galaxy to have interstellar space travel, and have had this capability for 4 billion years. Well, when the Draconians came and saw Bila, with all its abundance and food and natural resources, the Draconians wanted to control it. There was apparently a mis-communication or misunderstanding between the Draconians and Lyran humans. The Lyrans wanted to know more about the Draconians before some kind of "assistance" was offered. The Draconians mistook the communication as a refusal, and subsequently destroyed three out of 14 planets in the Lyran system. The Lyrans were basically defenseless. The planets Bila, Teka and Merck were destroyed. Over 50 million Lyran humans were killed. It is at this point in history that the Draconians began to look at humans as a food source. This is how old the struggle is between the reptilian and human races. Now, I must make the point that not all the reptilian or human races are "dark". There is a mix. When we start meeting these races, you are going to have to trust your gut instinct. But, they are coming. Hale Bopp is on its way here. It is not a comet. The Draconians AC: The Draconians are the force behind the repression of human populations everywhere in this galaxy instilling fear-based belief systems and restrictive hierarchies. I asked Morenae about them, and he said, "the Draconian race is probably the most understood race of beings. I have witnessed a deep respect for this race." The Andromedans consider the Draconians the "ultimate warriors," in a negative sense. Moranae continues, "the Draconians are the oldest reptilian race in our universe. Their forefathers came to our universe from another separate universe or reality system. When this occurred, no one really knows. The Draconians themselves are not really clear on when they got here. The Draconians teach their masses that they were here in this universe first, before humans, and as such they are heirs to the universe and should be considered royalty. They find disgust in the fact that humans do not recognize this as a truth. They have conquered many star systems and have genetically altered many of the life forms they have encountered. The area of the galaxy most densely populated with Draconian sub-races is in the Orion system, which is a huge system, and systems in Rigel and Capella. The mind set or consciousness of the majority of races in these systems is Service-to-Self, and as such they are always invading, subverting and manipulating less advanced races, and using their technology for control and domination. This is a very old and ancient war, and the peace that does not exist is always being tested by these beings, who believe that fear rules, and love is weak. They believe that those they perceive to be less fortunate, in comparison to them, are meant to be slaves. This belief system is promoted at birth in the reptilian races, wherein the mother, after giving birth, will abandon the offspring to fend for themselves. If they survive they are cared for by a warrior class that uses these children for games of combat and amusement." So, you can see that the reptilians are forever stuck in survival mode. This means they have no boundaries in what they will do to other beings. Morenae continues, "it is engrained in them never to trust a human. They are taught the Draconian version of the history of the 'Great Galactic War', which teaches that humans are at fault for invading the universe, and that humans selfishly wanted the Draconian society to starve and struggle for the basic materials that would allow them to exist." AC: Now, there are some real similarities there. The expression 'Draconian thought' is an expression on our world. I would suggest you research that. The Hierarchy in Our Galaxy [DSG, Ch 1]: There are two schools of thought in our galaxy. There are the regressives, who are races that carry fear and because of that want to control others. The hierarchy of the regressives starts with a group from Alpha Draconis. The Andromedans have no idea where the Alpha Draconians came from, but what they have learned through interaction with other dimensional races is that somebody brought the Draconians to this universe and "dumped" them in the Alpha Draconis system, where they had the highest probability of survival. According to the Andromedans, the Alpha Draconians have had space travel for 4 billion years. They are an incredible race and have achieved great things, but they are bullies. They are jerks, and that's a judgment - I'm taking that judgment myself. That's my judgment based on what I know about them. The Draconians do not like human beings. The Andromedans say that Draconians believe that this universe was here for them - that their history teaches them that they were left here to rule it. But, when they started traveling, they ran across other races. They were able to conquer many of those races through genetic manipulation. Now, our government, the United States government, the New World Order - whatever you want to call it - wants to implant everybody. From the Andromedan perspective that means ownership. Extraterrestrial don't want to bother with that stuff, since that is not permanent. Extraterrestrials value genetics. What they do is they come in, conquer a race and genetically alter it. From that moment on, that race is genetically altered. The genetic changes alter the frequency, sound and thought patterns of the race if they move into a physical form. Does everyone understand this? Q: Could you give us an example of this? AC: The best example I could give you concerns the Greys. Apparently, the Greys were much more human-looking at one time. What happened was that they, as a race, were captured 891,000 years ago while leaving Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 to go off and do their own thing. This is very common, and it is how Earth became colonized. What happened is that they got captured by a group in Orion that was already genetically altered and under control of the Alpha Draconians. According to Morenae, the first thing this Draconian- altered Orion group did was slaughter almost all of the females of the captured race in order to control the birth process. They then genetically altered the remaining females, so that all the children born after that were genetically altered. The males were enslaved, made to work in mines and slaughtered by the Draconian-controlled Orion group, who had absolutely no regard for life. What we know now as the Greys became a natural resource. General Trends of Humanoid Races in the Universe [DSG, Ch 4]: Val: How about humanoid races and societies, in comparison to us? The society on Earth has a manipulative base historically grounded in the Orion system. What about things on the opposite side of the coin? What is the "norm" in space societies, insofar as you are aware of? AC: Well, the "norm" is definitely "light". You know, self-rule and self-responsibility. The thing in that is going on in our particular part of the galaxy, which includes 21 systems, concerns the idea of tyranny. What is interesting about this is that the area in which this tyranny is occurring is a very very old area. It has been colonized for a long time, and it has been under control of some of the oldest races, like the Alpha Draconians. They were the first race to have space travel in our galaxy and were remarkable builders, but their species multiplied so rapidly that they decided to conquer other races to make room for them. Our race, the Earth human race, was literally created by a group that came down from a dimensional realm, and these were the Paa Tal. This verbal expression called Paa Tal is actually of Draconian origin. Val: So in actuality the genetics comprising the human body are a composite from around the galaxy, but the spiritual entities occupying human bodies are literally the Paa Tal? AC: Right. Val: So, are there any Paa Tal occupying reptilian bodies? AC: I don't know. Val: That would be an interesting twist on events. If there is a huge time-loop, maybe the reptilians actually came from "now", and swung back 4 billion years and started something there. AC: Interesting. Anything is certainly possible. So, anyway, how the humans in this galaxy apparently found out about the Paa Tal was that somehow they were able to get hold of ancient Draconian records. Now, the Draconians are apparently extremely private about their lineage and their history. Everything is "a secret". They have family "houses" of lineage they are very proud of. Val: Sort of like the Klingons on Star Trek. AC: Probably similar. Anyway, they found out about the Draconian legends which speak of a time where a group of beings came out of "nowhere" and created a race to war against and challenge the Draconian sovereignty. Val: Of the universe? AC: Well, no. We only see a small part of the universe. Even if you look at the part of the universe we can see physically, they say there are 100 trillion galaxies. So, the Draconians are not everywhere. There are a lot of them here, and this is one of the areas that is causing a problem. More on the history of the Zenetaen Civilization [DSG, Ch 6]: Alex: Let me answer that question this way. I have that question written down to ask them, because you gave me a question like that before to ask them. But, they did tell me that there was a time when they first left the Lyrae system, after about 21 generations had gone by, where they found themselves hiding. Again, I don't know all the details, but they were being hunted by another race. They were living in hollowed-out asteroids and moons. They were moving all the time. Val: This is the whole Zenetaen civilization. Alex: That's correct, and I do not know how many there were. They were basically living on craft and having to move around all the time, looking for a place that was safe. Well, there were beings from the Casseopian system that helped them, and apparently at that point in time the Zenetaens were under a kind of imposed dictatorship, because they were in survival mode and one person took control of their civilization. I can remember Morenae saying that it was imperative that they receive help, because they may not have evolved out of that , had it gone on any longer. What happened was that they were taken to two solar systems in the Andromedan constellation. We know them as "star 42" and "star 44". Star 42 is Zenetae, which is now their star system. Star 44 is Tishtae. Star 42 has 27 planets around the binary stars. Star 44 has nine planets, but all of the planets are equal to or greater than the size of Jupiter. They at this point were all terraformed. Val: These beings from the Casseopian system interacted with them approximately how long ago in our terms? Alex: About 2.5 million years ago, but perhaps a little longer. Val: Has the Zenetaen skin color always been blue? Alex: No. It was red at one time. Their original forefathers were red-skinned, and I am told that the Lyraens and Vegans were red-skinned at that time. Val: How did the progression begin to where the skin color changed to blue? Alex: Apparently it had to do with a pigmentation change caused by the ingestion of certain minerals... Val: Copper based minerals. Alex: It was in the food and everything they ate, and the double sun had an effect on this too. You have to remember something here. We are talking about fifth density beings, not third density, so you have the additional three color spectrums. I always try to take that into account when comparing them to us. They do literally live in another frequency. Val: So, were they ever in third density? Alex: I am not sure about that. Val: There seems to be a prevalent assumption among humans that things "start" at a level of third density existence. But, that's a misnomer, because... Alex: No all the races have been or are third density. Val: So, since the period approximately 2.5 million years go, do you have any idea of how their civilization has grown and changed since then? Alex: No, I don't know. All I know is where they are now because that's the only way I know them. That would be a question I would have to ask them. The Nature of Nibiru [DSG, Ch 6]: Val: Here's another question that was submitted to me: "You mentioned that the Lemurians and Atlanteans were extraterrestrials and you also mentioned Nibiru. Tell us about Nibiru and its role and relationship to us in this solar system." Alex: This is what I have been told about who those connected with Nibiru are. A very long time ago, colonies on Sirius B and the Orion Group were having trouble with each other. In order to bring peace, there was a marriage between two members of each group. The woman came from the Orion Group, where the hierarchy includes a queen - the matriarchal paradigm. The male was from Sirius B. Both members were considered royalty of their respective line. When these two came together in marriage, their offspring had the genetics from both lines. Because of these genetics, the new race that was created was given the name "Nibiru", which I am told by Morenae in the Orion tongue means "divided amongst two". This is who they literally are - a cross between those from Sirius B and a race from the Orion system. They formed a new "tribe" which has continued to flourish for at least hundreds of thousands of years. So, they are a tribe that has become a race. Thoughts on the Nature of the Universe [LFA v 2, n.2, 1996] In the beginning, Earth was colonized by 22 E.T. races - 17 human, the rest insectual, botanical and reptilian. Land continents first supporting white race colonies were Mu and Poseidia. Atlantis sank 23,712 years ago. E.T.'s came fro mineral and natural resources, especially gold and borax. Terrians - Earth Sitchin's 5,000 - 6,000 years cataclysmic events - lost record. Our Universe is approximately 21 trillion years old. Earth is 7-1/2 billion years old. The conception that we have regarding the age of physicalness is not how more advanced beings or civilizations think or measure material that makes up our Universe, so I will explain to your the reader the concepts that I've been taught by the beings that have contacted me from the constellation of Andromeda. Our Universe consists of eleven primary dimensional levels or belts. Within these levels are 11 different levels or frequencies of sound and color. This is important to state because that which we perceive as the Universe is the last level of creation that is occurring i our present. In other words 4th density is our next level and within that vibration is 11 levels of matter and creation, and so on with all the other levels until we reach the 11th density and the last level of that density. Now in the creation of this Universe the more advanced civilizations state that the true beginning of this Universe starts with the thought conception of it. First there was the idea and then the word and then it became manifest into the many levels moving down the scale into physical matter that we call 3rd density. It is here that we, with our still limited sciences try to measure. Time and space to equal or validate our belief systems that focus most of the time on the physical realm. Accordingly, the sciences of some of the extraterrestrial civilizations state that our Universe is 21 trillion years old as we measure time which is not how they measure time. But, for the sake of all the readers I will state all measurements of time in Earth years. Using this conception or truth we are being asked to look at our home and ourselves in a different light. The beings which I shall refer to from this moment on as the 11, have stated that not all of the civilizations in space explain the truths the same way so I leave it to the reader to absorb and feel the information and trust your own wisdom. The physical creation of our Universe accordingly was 21 billion years ago. If this is the true nature of what our Universe is and how it works then we must come to realize that there is more to us also since we are connected to this process as well, on most levels if not all of them. It has been explained to me that our conception of the big bang theory is correct in its simplicity and that the idea of creation and evolution are correct also, so everyone is right and all of our present theories and evaluations are incomplete. The creation of our physical Universe occurred quite suddenly if we could have all been watching it. The 11 have said that on the 1st level of 4th density it was agreed to by the power of our thoughts to create a lower vibration of density. We were in fact very successful. In 4th density as this idea was given power 3 huge pockets were created and as soon as these pockets of energy could not hold any more light and all that we wanted to create was manifested, then these pockets of matter exploded into a void of space and time thus creating the magnificents that we see as our present home physical Universe. This is also the same process that we used to create the last level of the 11th density. This also explains why our science sees this Universe as a closed Universe. Because we have not created any levels of density below or lower than 3rd density. This is they lowest level of the dimensional ladder. From here everyone evolves up. The black holes are the windows from which the big bang explosions originally came from. They are portals to another dimension of Universe the Andromedans think. We the creators and the infants of the Isness, we all as a collective consciousness created it. All thought from all forms of spirits, both individually and those that are collective created this particular Universe. We all come from another Universe and/or thought dimensional plane. This dimensional plane is said to be on the 45th plane. Here we all joined to create another separate, but very different physical and spiritual density, as well as other density bodies that accompany any pure energy. Three large groups of souls, totaling on the trillions decided that they were going to leave the source and create. The Isness set up the rules for the experiment and we all had to agree to play by the rules. Not one soul was kidnapped or forced. Free will overrode any and all decisions. We gathered at our respective portal or black hole. Each portal had a significant position or path of evolution. The paths were different as per each soul. We all chose a different journey, we were separated into three groups. Those that were to remain in 4th density and evolve up. The 2nd group were those souls that were to be planets, moons, stars, suns, planets, animals, and other forms. The 3rd density group were those that were to be true carriers of the spirit in physical forms. This group had to begin, with the 2nd group and evolve to the 3rd density and up. This is not to be misunderstood with the idea that human beings or other conscious physical life forms are better than any other evolved life forms. Mankind could not exist if it were not for the efforts of the 1st and 2nd kingdoms. Each Universe is a living organism. Each Universe is in the mind of God (Isness) one living soul. The shaping of our Universe of history is unique in the vastness of time. Creational love and advancement, technology and happiness are second to none. But, because of our other polarity of fear which we agreed to experience, we also have gone to the extreme of war, hate, destruction and self-punishment. Fear is almost as powerful a creational force as love. Even though it is not real, real in the sense that your are truly threatened, you're not; not the real you. However, fear in its creational form is not free. It is very restrictive, controlling and destructive. I will begin to give some historic examples of this in our Universe. Lyrans The Lyrans are the original white Aryan Race and what is left of the Aryans is the Pleaidians and Andromedans. Birth of the humanoid race has all of the genetic DNA from this area. Ancient Lyrans were the Titans. The giants Bigfoot also descended from Lyrans. All life destroyed on Lyra and the ring Nebula eye Og God. Lyra consists of 14 inhabited planets, three planets were destroyed during the wars Bila, Teka and Merok. 50 million were slaughtered. Lyrans started the Black League. The Black Dragon. Lyrans grew into Sirian, Arcturian, Antarian, Pleaidian, Andromedan, Cignus Alphan, Alpha Centauri, Sagittarius A & B, Cassiopia, all human evolution. Based upon genetically human forms in higher realms and very highly evolved Universes, it was decided that many forms of life would be created here in Lyra because it appeared to be ideal as far as the age of the Suns and Planets and the length of probable stability. The human race would have time to evolve and create space exploration and gravitate by means of energy and spiritual recognition into planetary civilizations and that those races would in turn create there own root races and life. It was also important that these races be allowed to manifest and create different aspects of ourselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Thus we would be creating diversity and expressing our own need to create. As the human race fragmented, the races moved, traveled, and settled many different planets in many systems as space travel evolved. The human became aware of other planetary civilizations in theses systems. Different cultures meet and grew. Belief systems clashed or spread. New thoughts of Philosophy or technologies came into being. Mankind was evolving. A very strong social community developed between all in the Lyra System. The Lyrans were a very peaceful race on the whole. There were disagreements and light conflicts, but much was always cleared and resolved. The Lyrans learned to adapt to virtually all of the planetary environments that they settled. They learned to live in complete harmony with their respective planets. They developed agricultural communities that were literally awesome. They were not only efficient and could feed billions of beings, but it was actually enhancing the planet itself and creating an even wealthier environment. All aspects of life seem to benefit from the Lyran's commitment to be at one with their home planets. At the same time, the life expectancy was between 300 - 425 years on the average. This was to increase by 3 times later, but everyone worked as a community. They were not in service of self, but were a race that beat as one heart, and shared and moved in the same direction as a whole and would try to make sure that none of their race would lag or fall too far behind the whole. In other words, "The needs of the many, out weigh the needs of the few." They were an incredible role model for all humanity that followed to this present moment. The human race is history. the works of the mind are a record of that history, for the whole record of the human race is in one man. If you read these words then you are a part of Lyran heritage and a part of your carries this history within. The Pleaidians - The Seven Sisters The human species of Pleaidians evolved from Lyra. And they did develop effective weapons of war that helped sustain them through the Orion Wars and beyond. It has been said that the Pleaidians as we know then were Lyrans that came to Earth and then went to the Pleaides. Although some of the Lyrans that colonized her and our Earth for a time, a larger group of Lyrans went to the seven sisters and to other star systems during the Orion Wars. The Pleaidians are our far distant first cousins and ancestral forefathers of some of our races. The Pleaidians are also descendants of the Lyrans who came from Lyra in space stations or arks because of the your star systems and the potential for stable longevity. The Lyrans would send down scout teams consisting of scientists and engineers and agricultural specialists to explore the surface of possible habitable planets and to explore them and return data and information to the mothership. Each planet is explored and based upon its unique nature, the is developed and colonies are then sent down to settle. It is in this way that the Pleaidians are so interested in our world and our races here. They have been visiting Earth for at least 79,743 years, with many large settlements. They've just come and gone throughout our planets history. We are very similar in many ways to them, however, they are emotionally and spiritually more evolved than we at this time. But they too have gone through their growing pains, as we are going through them right now. They have made attempts to share with us the benefits of their experience. So we ourselves don't have to experience the same kinds of setback and possible destructions, but at present, not enough people are listening. The Pleaides is an open star cluster consisting of 254 stars and many times that planetary bodies. Many of the stars are very young. This is located in the constellation of Taurus. The Pleaidians and the alphabets of Earth are both very similar. This was noted as of about 11,157 years ago that the script form was developed here on Earth and carried back to the seven sisters. This script form is the parent of most of our present day alphabets. Three of the star systems have human life as we know it, the most advance is the system of Taygeta. And the other is the system of Taro which circles Alcyone. Most of the Pleaidians look like us in both size and stature, build, color of hair, etc. They are also very affluent and articulate when speaking any of our languages, or discussing our sciences, history, etc. We have inherited our aggressiveness towards each other from them. Their life spans far exceed our own by at least 10 times what is our norm. Their technology has made it possible to travel anywhere in our Universe at speeds faster than the speed of light. They are capable of using the oceans for undersea operations. They are very concerned about our misuse for our sciences today and that we have completely lost our spiritual center or harmony with our sciences. They have no use for money, politics and religions, clearly stating that the later two-politics and religions are really the same. The Pleaidians are worried as our most benevolent races visit, that we will destroy our planet and ourselves. All Earths languages are derived from a ancient Pre-Sumerian language called Tamil which was spoken in Lyra and in the Pleaides. The Pleaidians as well as other groups have left descendants on the Earth in the past. They have said they are willing to help us but not to the point of changing our own evolution and then therefore becoming responsible for us as a race. They say we create our own future as we go that we need to correct our own mistakes ourselves or suffer because of them. The Arcturians This group of beings settled in the constellation of Arcturius. These races of humanity are very private, and for very specific reasons do they get involved with Earth. They think of themselves as healers. They carry a strong pride of technology in the arts of physical healing, and emotional and spiritual bodies. They have been known to intervene in the ancient past to help resolve very serious conflicts in our area of the Universe by sharing their unique ability to show others how to integrate their belief systems and feelings to resolve conflict. They can be very silent, and can and will keep very much to themselves. They as a group, have done much to help raise the overall levels of consciousness in our Universe. At this time the Andromedans have added little more than this.

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owl-eyed-woman · 7 years ago

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Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode 36 Analysis Part 5: An Ode to the Ensemble

AOT has always been a type of ensemble show, incorporating dozens of characters, several competing factions and so many weird sounding names that you can’t possibly remember all of them. This large and varied cast is crucial for creating a sprawling, complex world filled with countless people who, alongside our main characters, are struggling with the same, trying circumstances. At least, that’s the intended effect.

The downside of having such a large cast, however, is that you actually need to develop them or they might start to seem like extraneous titan fodder. AOT has definitely fallen into this trap before.

To be fair, fixing this issue is not as simple as just developing every single character into multi-dimensional human beings; this would just bog the story down with superfluous detail. Still, far too often, interactions with this expansive side cast have used them as cameos not characters, relying on weird quirks to differentiate rather than authentic characterisation.

Thankfully, this season has clearly recognised this shortcoming and started to shine a light on thus far overlooked and underutilised characters. We’ve moved away from Eren, Armin and Mikasa and have instead focused on the secondary characters in the cadet corps. With this shift, AOT has truly begun to excel as an ensemble piece.

In the context of this season-wide reframing and refocusing, however, this episode is actually a bit of an outlier as it re-centres a lot of the action around Mikasa and Armin. But fear not, the side-characters have their time in the spotlight!

Obviously, a lot has happened in this season which, may I remind you, has spanned less than two days. There’s a lot to process and with barely a second to rest, everyone is undoubtedly struggling physically, mentally and emotionally. With this in mind, this episode grants our precious side characters a chance to finally address the most shocking twist of the season: Reiner and Bertholdt’s betrayal.

AOT has spent several episodes examining (and re-examining and then re-examining again) the various nuances of Eren’s emotional fallout from this betrayal, but the questions still remains: what about the other cadets? They, like Eren, trusted Bertholdt and Reiner unconditionally, counting them as comrade and companion through thick and thin. It only follows that their emotional fallout is just as cutting and devastating as Eren’s.

So as Sasha, Jean, Connie, Armin and Mikasa converge atop Reiner, surrounding the encased Bertholdt, it becomes a type of twisted family reunion, where past resentments and remembrances are dredged up and brought out into the open. How is everyone holding up?

Well, unsurprisingly, they’re confused and hurt! Who’da thunk? Each of them express this pain differently, coping in their own flawed ways. Sasha is simply in a state of disbelief. Connie, my sweet, dense boy, almost seems in a state of denial that they could have lied to them for so long whilst Jean’s snarky rejoinders hide his obvious distress.

There’s a lot these characters need to express openly in order to truly start healing and moving on from this betrayal, more than can be said in this brief conversation. Jean’s words cut to the heart of the matter as he vehemently tells them that they can’t just, literally and figuratively, run away from them and the three years of friendship they shared. It’s a desperate and raw attempt to appeal to Bertholdt and Reiner’s humanity that they now fear was only a façade.

They all desperately want to understand why this has happened and find some type of explanation for their betrayal after they’ve trusted them for so long but there is no satisfactory answer. In the end, while this brief conversation does allow for some emotional catharsis, it ultimately remains one-sided, unsatisfying and futile. Reiner and Bertholdt remain unmoved.

In the scheme of this episode, this is only one brief exchange, but it still shows us the genuine effort AOT has made this season to add depth and complexity to initially flat and simple characters. But after all this welcome effort, one character still remains obscured: Bertholdt. I’ve often joked that I only know two things about Bertholdt: 1. He is quiet and 2. He is tall. But honestly, there’s a lot of truth in this ridiculous, reductive statement. Who is Bertholdt? What motivates him? Why did he commit such horrific acts as the Colossal Titan?

Despite Eren and Mikasa’s virulent insistence to the contrary, AOT has been hinting heavily that Bertholdt and Reiner are more than just two irredeemable monsters who hate all of humanity; there’s another side to their betrayal.

We know that Reiner has struggled with his crimes, splitting his personality in twain just to cope with the guilt, but Bertholdt’s position has remained mysterious throughout this entire affair. Not even his friends’ desperate pleas are able to elicit any reaction or explanation from Bertholdt.

Interestingly, it’s Mikasa’s brutally pragmatic dismissal that gets a response out of the consistently aloof Bertholdt. Unlike the other cadets, Mikasa never seemed particularly close to Bertholdt or Reiner, and now, after what they’ve done, she couldn’t give two fucks about either of them. She doesn’t care about any purported humanity or moral nuance. In fact, she actively rejects its existence and rejects its relevance. They are her enemy now and that’s all she needs to know.

It’s this blunt dismissal that challenges Bertholdt to prove his humanity, to prove that they aren’t just monsters to be vanquished. As tears stream down his face, Bertholdt finally reaches his breaking point and reveals all. It is at once heartbreaking, humanising and horrifying.

He has no delusions about what they did, no declarations of moral righteousness, no smarmy excuses; just a soul-crushing awareness of the evil, disgusting crimes that they have committed. Like Reiner, Bertholdt has been consumed by guilt and self-hatred because of their atrocious actions; he’s just better at hiding it. He knows they deserve to die for what they’ve done.

It’s honestly a relief to have explicit confirmation that they didn’t want to kill all those people. I know AOT is a story about literal monsters, but I guess I don’t want to believe that someone could happily murder so many innocents unless they were literally inhuman. Then again, maybe that’s naïve; AOT’s central government forced its citizens into a suicide mission in order to cull the population. Such atrocities are the order of the day for human society as a whole. But I digress.

Significantly, Bertholdt also admits that he sincerely cared about his comrades during his time as a soldier in the 104th cadet corps, even if it was just a reprieve from this guilt. Their years undercover weren’t just part of the job, but rather, a brief refuge from the reality of their deeds. In the end, Reiner and Bertholdt were so good at playing make-believe soldiers because they desperately wanted to believe they were just innocent soldiers, if only for a while.

It’s a potent reminder that though Eren may dismiss them as monsters, even the most despicable people are still human beings. It’s easy to completely write off people after they do evil things or betray us but if we can’t acknowledge the humanity in our enemies, we’ll never truly comprehend our own innate potential for both cruelty and kindness. We’re all complicated, we all contain multitudes and if AOT has taught us anything, we’re all capable of terrible things.

With that said, there’s only so much sympathy we can extend towards those actively trying to eradicate countless human lives. Yes, this distraught assertion of humanity and admission of guilt is genuinely moving, but Bertholdt and Reiner still made the choice to commit these crimes and stain their hands with innocent blood. I’ve been hard on Mikasa in my past analysis, but her to-the-point demand for Eren’s return is ultimately the correct response to the situation; any sympathy is pointless if they are still trying to destroy humanity.

This episode didn’t have to give so much runtime to these minor characters; it could have simply coasted on its action and gore and twists and turns. But still, in this single, tiny scene, AOT manages to do so much and is so much stronger for its inclusion. I truly appreciate this show’s continued effort to imbue its characters with complexity and humanity. This is why I’ve spent 5 whole posts analysing, or, if we’re being honest, rambling on about this single episode.

If you’re interested, I’ve linked to my other articles below expanding on other parts of this episode.

Links: Part 1: Why I Love this Show Part 2: Ymir and Christa Part 3: Mikasa, Co-dependency and Morality Part 4: Armin and Sacrifice

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