#none of this is cold blooded killing it's logical warfare

[titan-mom]

Destiny: MIDNIGHT EXIGENT

Someone asked me to analyze what it says on the Sleeper Simulant about  “MIDNIGHT EXIGENT” and boy oh boy do I love what I found. (I am a sucker for AI stuff yes please!) I love decoding Rasputin speak. Enjoy the tasty meta!

He mentioned it was a theory that a line on the Sleeper Simulant implied another exotic weapon.

Subroutine IKELOS: Status=complete. MIDNIGHT EXIGENT: Status=still in progress. 

It’s not that that implies another weapon, it implies another directive for Rasputin. MIDNIGHT EXIGENT is all over the Rasputin cards. There’s a lot of AI speak down there so I bolded the things being examined to make skimming easier!

So let’s start at...

-IKELOS

From the Sleeper Quest, the Weapon Frame step:

“ Bunker perimeter defenses have repeatedly failed. Calling new mechanism IKELOS. Purpose: enable Guardians to secure key positions and other goals relevant to MIDNIGHT EXIGENT. “

IKELOS is the name of the fusion core we found during the Sleeper quest. It also refers to us! Rasputin has been nudging us around the system, dropping warsats, calling on us for aid in the bunker story mission and the SABER strike. Maybe even the one behind the mysterious patrol missions? The IKELOS core, and all of Sleeper Simulant was a gift to us! Zavala is worried about making contact with him, getting some cooperation going? No need, it’s already happened. Rasputin considers us, at the very least, a tool with which to fight the Darkness. I don’t think we are that high on the priority list for orbital death from above, despite the threats.

-MIDNIGHT EXIGENT

Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 3:

“ Total strategic collapse imminent. FENRIR HEART reports complete operational mortality. SURTR DROWN in progress but negative effect. Forecasts unanimously predict terminal VOLUSPA failure. “

“ I am declaring YUGA SUNDOWN effective on receipt (epoch reach/FORCECON variant). Cancel counterforce objectives. Cancel population protection objectives. Format moral structures for MIDNIGHT EXIGENT. ”

One of the early Rasputin cards. I always understood YUGA SUNDOWN as last ditch defensive effort. Rasputin recognizes the Darkness is alone. He will be alone too, it is the only way to win. He is cutting all ties to morality in order to win. He shuts himself down, boards himself up. Waits.

After Sundown comes Midnight. MIDNIGHT EXIGENT then, I assume is reawakening and fighting for survival. It specifically requires a different than normal moral structure though, a shift from “population protection” to “win at all costs.” Rasputin is essentially turning off his feelings, perhaps permanently. Any loss is an acceptable loss, whatever it takes to destroy the Darkness.

Now, that solves that for MIDNIGHT, but now we have even MORE fun stuff to look at!

-VOLUSPA

Ghost Fragment Darkness:

“ Promote event to SKYSHOCK: OCP: EXTINCTION. Activate VOLUSPA. Activate YUGA. Cauterize public sources to SECURE ISIS and harden for defensive action.

I am invoking CARRHAE WHITE and assuming control of solar defenses. ”

Sleeper Simulant Grimmore card:

“ Operation MIDNIGHT EXIGENT is NOT YET COMPLETE. Interim response necessity is IMPERATIVE.

Hypothesize that resource GUARDIANS may be leveraged to compensate for CDP inadequacies.

Reassign 12 percent of COSMO assets to new directive: declare IKELOS.

I am calling VOLUSPA and extracting subroutine DVALIN FORGE, to be modified and recompiled to comport to MIDNIGHT EXIGENT parameters. “

VOLUSPA is a defense protocol of some kind? Not a lot on it but it seems to be arming Rasputin or other allied forces in case of SKYSHOCK. IKELOS falls under this, because the gift of Sleeper is arming us. Rasputin hasn’t got the forces to fight all the enemies we have in our system, so he’s using us to fill the gaps. I’m not necessarily complaining, seems logical. I’m happy to be ground forces for a hyper advanced defensive AI, he knows what he’s doing.

-SKYSHOCK

Ghost Fragment: Darkness:

This is a SKYSHOCK ALERT.

Multiple distributed ISR assets report a TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT. Event duration ZERO POINT THREE SECONDS. Event footprint includes sterile neutrino scattering and gravity waves. Omnibus analysis detects deep structure information content (nine sigma) and internal teleonomy.

No hypothesis on event mechanism (FLAG ACAUSAL). Bootstrap simulation suggests event is DIRECTED and INIMICABLE (convergent q-Bayes/Monte Carlo probability approaches 1).

SKYSHOCK means something from outside the system has arrived. Something preparing to destroy us. A logical failsafe to program into a Warmind intended to defend humanity. The Traveler arrived after all, it’s perfectly plausible something else less friendly will as well.

Nine sigma gets me interested, any potential mention of The Nine does. On The Nine card there is a line that says “The Nine are deep-orbit warminds who weathered the Collapse in hardened stealth platforms.” I still don’t know how metaphorical or literal we should take that card, but it’s another discussion and food for thought.

On another sidenote, note the “ACAUSAL” there, that’s code for “Hive Magic.“ The Darkness arrived, and it was Crota.

-DVALIN FORGE

DVALIN FORGE, if you recognize that name, is the things you pick up in the wild, turn into Banshee, and eventually get the Sleeper quest.

From DVALIN-RAS93-FR001

“ VOLUSPA subroutine DVALIN FORGE. Purpose: strategic arming of human forces in the face of CARRHAE WHITE emergency. “

Pretty much falls under the same concept as VOLUSPA and IKELOS. Create weapons, get more guns in the fight, survive the CARRHAE WHITE emergency. Being called DVALIN FORGE makes me think these weapons are being created, produced somewhere by an automated process, maybe something not unlike SIVA.

-CARRHAE WHITE

I copied pretty much all of the card because it’s all cool and all important.

From Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 5:

Under CARRHAE (WHITE or BLACK) If SECURITY STATE is EGYPTIAN If event rank is TEILHARD: TRAUMATIC CONTEXT or SKYSHOCK: OUTSIDE CONTEXT If VOLUSPA is ACTIVE and in FAILURE [[synapse to FENRIR::SURTR]] If YUGA is ACTIVE and in SUNDOWN If AI-COM has granted PERMISSIVE POTENTIATION to outboard resilient instances If a CIVILIZATION KILL EVENT is underway [[all flexions]] If tactical morality is built at MIDNIGHT

Stand by for DECISION POINT: If available ISR and WARWATCH indicates imminent [O] departure >then [O] departure compromises human/neohuman survival and epoch strategy Stand by for ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE: Activate LOKI CROWN Perform deniable authorization: full caedometric and noetic release Prevent [O] departure by any means available Stand by for effect assessment criteria: Coerce pseudoaltruistic [O] defensive action. Defer civilization kill. “

[O] is likely the Traveler. CARRHAE WHITE (OR BLACK?) is a situation of emergency surrounding the Traveler. Here, particularly, is a command that says if the Traveler attempts to leave, stop it at all costs, “coerce” it to defend us, and keep civilization alive. Pretty much confirms the old theory that Rasputin shot it to keep it in place. “ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE” implies it wasn’t necessarily malicious either. It was a last ditch course of action. Rasputin or at least his programmers did not want this eventuality, but planned for it.

“Pseudoaltruistic” is an interesting word to note there. Does that mean the Traveler isn’t actually protecting us, it’s protecting itself and we are just a byproduct? Or is it that the Traveler appears to be protecting us, but something else is going on? Time may tell.

What I really want to know, also, is the difference between CARRHAE WHITE and CARRHAE BLACK.

TLDR

SKYSHOCK- Enemies from outside the system have arrived.

CARRHAE WHITE- A state of emergency surrounding the Traveler.

MIDNIGHT EXIGENT- Turn off morality, use any and all assets to defeat the enemy at any cost.

VOLUSPA- Blanket routine for defensive actions, including the arming of allies under subroutines IKELOS and DVALIN FORGE.

IKELOS- Guardians are strategic assets. Use them.

DVALIN FORGE- Make guns, arm humanity, so they may fight.

[comicgirl08]

Supergirl recap: Lena and Supergirl go all caged heat

One day has passed since the world believes it saw Supergirl attack the White House, and Kara is horrified to realize how sharply public sentiment has turned against her. President Baker himself addresses the nation to announce a sundown-to-sunup curfew and to urge Supergirl to turn herself in.

Even though she’s America’s most wanted, when Supergirl hears someone calling for help from a burning vehicle, naturally she flies to lend a hand. But her efforts are interrupted by a man with a gun trying to make a citizen’s arrest. Her attempts to deflect the bullets end up causing an explosion in the car and even the man she pulls to safety says his daughter was crushed to watch Supergirl turn into a terrorist.

To rectify things, Alex and Lena set out to help Supergirl in their own ways. For Alex, that means subverting Lockwood’s demand that the DEO turn over the signal watch and any weapons that could capture Supergirl. Haley sends him away to secure proper presidential approval, but while he’s gone, she sets about gathering the goods he asked for because “orders are orders.”

Alex hands over the watch and instructs her to press it twice to summon Supergirl. (Ah, but once summons Supergirl; twice is the Akbar warning.) To get her chain-of-command-loving boss fully onboard, Alex asks for Kelly Olsen’s advice on what to do. Kelly tells her that you can’t change people, but you can appeal to what they care most about.

So Alex tries to convince Haley that following an immoral order makes you complicit and begs her to think of her daughter. Haley is furious at having that bit of personal information leveraged against her. Also, she knows that Alex lied and it’s actually a single press to summon Supergirl.

Brainy, too, is facing a conundrum after he and Alex agree that Lockwood’s next step will be to use the alien registry to start rounding up aliens. Declaring that “no one is more clandestine than I. NO ONE!” Brainy sets out to delete the registry, relying on the subterfuge techniques of Ethan Hunt, “master of the impossible mission.”

But when the time comes to delete, he realizes that there’s a 50/50 chance that deleting it will cause more harm for the alien community if he’s discovered. He freaks out and finds Nia at CatCo, even though they haven’t spoken since their “incredible yet devastating romantic encounter at the hospital.” Since he can’t use logic to decide, he asks her to dream the future to find out what he decides so he can just do it.

Then she plays him by pretending to dream that he doesn’t destroy the registry. He says that’s ridiculous, and she explains that she tricked him into listening to his gut. But that night, she for-real dreams that he’s apprehended by the Children of Liberty for destroying the registry and calls him in a panic to warn him not to do it. Too late, though; he deleted it but downloaded a copy of his brain, calling the potential danger “the cost of being a hero.”

Okay, now, to Supergirl and Lena, who follow up on Lilian Luthor’s tip that Lex has been coming and going from his prison cell for months. They strong-arm the Stryker Island warden to let them toss Lex’s cell by promising to keep his husband out of his Lex-related legal mess. He agrees, and Supergirl takes the long walk past a row of penned inmates chanting her name and calling her a terrorist, with a supportive Lena by her side. Lena, after all, knows all about how awful it is to be a good guy accused of being bad.

In Lex’s cell, Lena declares his Hannibal-crossing-the-Alps etching pretentious and solves his puzzle to unlock their childhood chess board to reveal stacks of Lex’s journals, including one recording all of her faults and mistakes since she was four. What a monster he is. Lena settles into the painful task of reading her brother’s journals, even though just looking at his handwriting is like needles in her eyes, while Supergirl talks to his cell neighbor, Steve Lomeli (Willie Garson, a welcome presence in whatever show he pops up in).

Steve, who’s locked up for stealing classified DOD documents about illegal drone warfare, calls her a malignant narcissist, taunting that, “Everything you touch, you ruin.” Then things get worse when Otis shows up to kill the warden and free all the inmates from their cells to help capture Supergirl.

Knowing that Otis has Metallo’s powers, Lena gives Supergirl a Kryptonite shield for her S-insignia. Wait, so Lena made a K-shield and brought it with her on the off chance that Supergirl might need it? That’s certainly thoughtful of her.

Then Supergirl turns to fight her way through a long line of inmates, none of whom stand a chance against her, and honestly, Supergirl effortlessly batting around a cellblock full of numbskulls is exactly why I watch this program, so thank you every so much, writers.

Then Otis appears to sneer, “if it isn’t Lee Harvey Supergirl.” They blast each other through walls and hit each other with prison gym equipment, but eventually, his Kryptonite blasts destroy her shield, and Supergirl’s forced to change into Kara Danvers. In her human guise, she tells Otis she saw a red blur going that-away, and for a second, Otis looks suspicious. C-could he possibly be…?

Nah, he just wants to know what a woman’s doing in an all-male cellblock. She tells him she’s a journalist doing a story on prison reform. But he doesn’t care to give her a comment: “I don’t trust the press. They always parachute into crises like this without any context for the larger systemic issues at play.” Y’ALL. I may be a little in love with Otis now because, by God, he’s not wrong.

When he heads out, Kara recharges in the sun and then bumps into Steve, who turns out to be the editor of Stryker’s one and only newsletter. He’s delighted to meet the famous Kara Danvers, who writes the Aliens of National City column, and apologizes for having his muscle pull a shiv on her.

Then the National Guard pulls up outside and makes plans to come in shooting if Supergirl doesn’t give herself up. Steve predicts that the prisoners are acceptable collateral damage in this scenario and drops to the floor, placing a comforting hand over the trembling fingers of his scared bodyguard, which was a nice little character moment.

To minimize the casualties, Kara changes into Supergirl again and uses a super-clap to knock all of the rioting prisoners off their feet and out of the line of fire.

Then she races back to Lex’s cell, where Lena has discovered that the etching isn’t of the Alps, but the mountain peak where a young Lex promised a young Lena that he’d build a house to keep them both safe forever. (Is…is that a touch of humanity, or another long-ago Lex trick?) When she touched that section of the drawing, the wall lifted to reveal his secret prison lab.

But before the women can explore its secrets, Otis steps into the cell as he talks on the phone with Lex, who directs him to the center of the room. Once he’s there, Lex engages a device that revs Otis’s Metallo implant and causes him to explode. It destroys the lab, and Lena and Supergirl barely escape thanks to Supergirl punching through the back wall.

But the danger isn’t over yet; Lockwood arrives at the DEO with the proper presidential order and starts handing out big guns to his men. He tells Haley to summon Supergirl, and Haley. presses. twice. Heck yeah, scary boss lady!

A frustrated Lockwood realizes that Supergirl’s not coming, so he takes all the big guns with him and leaves. Haley tells Alex that she didn’t do the double-tap for Alex but for her daughter, who’s scared of the martial law and is sad that her favorite alien teacher has gone into hiding. Suddenly, the complicit thing didn’t look so appealing, huh?

Also unappealing? The president allowing Lockwood to deputize the Children of Liberty, which should make everybody’s blood run cold. Oh, and Eve’s able to put Humpty-Otis back together again after his detonation.

Finally, when the news (but not CatCo, of course!) spins the Stryker Island visit as Supergirl’s attempt to free prisoners, Supergirl realizes she’s doing more harm than good right now and flies away to lie low. And in her Kara Danvers duds, she heads back to Stryker to interview Steve, who’s honored to help bring Lex Luthor to justice. He slides her a jump drive with the contents of Lex’s secret prison lab hard drive before it was destroyed.

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” he says, and she replies, “Maybe even mightier than a cape.”

Snaps of the cape

Tonight’s important Olsen development: James is suffering from something more than PTSD. Although the therapist he’s working with teaches him about bilateral stimulation, a widely used calming tool, his eyes and veins turn black when he’s upset, giving him super sight, strength, and hearing. Stay tuned for the possibility of a turbo-charged, midnight-eyed Guardian.

Not only did James fill Kelly in on what’s going on, but didja catch that smiley little moment she shared with Alex? I bet they’re both glad she stuck around National City.

My word, but Otis is a pop-culture quip machine: It’s easy being green, his heart growing three sizes, heeeeeere’s Otis. Supergirl is killing it with the recurring villains this season!

Gosh, remember when both Alex and Lena were not at all Supergirl’s biggest fans? And then Supergirl won them both over through her bravery, loyalty, and friendship? A million heart emojis forever, show!

[twitchesandstitches]

Boys Night at The Hellscape

Steven Universe, Equius Zahhak, Grimlock, and a traveler named Riddle who often comes along with the Fleet attempt to have a boy’s night out but wound up in a hellscape, where it seems an army of fiends wants to fight them!

Steven wants to talk; Grimlock wants to murder the shit of out the fiends for giggles; Riddle is just so done with all this, and Equius is doing his best to keep these ruffians sensible. And there’s the minor problem that Molog Bal, Daedric Prince of Schemes and Domination, apparently has a vendetta against the Fleet, but that is a Later Problem.

(Riddle is an OC from a friend of mine that I’ve been meaning to do something with, for a bit.)

The sky was no sky at all, a flat shade of… the eye hurt, trying to look at it, because there was no sky, but mountains twisting up and continuing, at such a horrifyingly vast scale that it occupied the trillions of miles that would have filled the sky. Clouds of acid dripped their sulfuric rain down and melted the unwary horrors beyond, rivers of vitriolic fluid sluicing down.

The ground, the mountains, and everything else looked disgusting. Grimlock reached down and pinched a bit of it, rubbing it between his metal claws. It made a red smear, stinking a familiar coppery scent. “Blood,” he said. “It’s all blood.”

Steven Universe, a huge and rather feral man built on the same broad lines as his infamously imposing mother, made a fade. Considering that he was over eight feet tall, packed more mass than you found in a group of humans, and had a mouthful of recursive tusk/fangs, it was strange how cute the expression was. “Oh boy, that’s nasty.” he leaned down and sniffed it, looking sick and irritated at once. He pinched at a rock, which came apart into little bits, and he spat into his hand, mixing up the gravel… and blood streamed out. He wiped it away. “Ugh, it, it feels wrong.”

“Blood of the damned,” said the third of their party, a man named Riddle. Of average size, a chunky pear-shaped body and a distinct resemblance to a famous wizard tyrant (though lacking his serpentine features), he wore a complicated battle harness that resembled a fancy spandex suit. Compared to the others, he looked deceptively small. “Blood of the damned. The entire plane is made out of all the blood shed by evil plans ever since time began. Rivers of the stuff, flowing here in some… weird, metaphysical way. And it makes more world.”

The fourth of their group, and the last, studied it pensievely. He was a troll, and thus a little over forty feet tall, standing tall on digitigrade legs he had modified to look like hooves. Cybernetic implants ran all over his body, and his arms (big even on his massive, hyper-masculine build) were entirely robotic hydraulic wonders. He was Equius Zahhak, rumored descended of an ancient troll known in folklore as the Blue Arrow, and he had been the designated ‘sensible person’ of this little field trip.

It was custom amid the Fleet for at least one person to do their best to try to be a rationally-minded and logical sort, just to rein in the impulsive behavior and frenzies of berserker-ness that permeated the average Fleet child. Equius was content in this role.

“That portal,” he said solemnly, “Should not have sent us here.”

“Nope,” Riddle said. Equius gave him a somewhat wary look, thinking about how he tended to just turn up as a passenger for a bit. Frequently. He was often seen in the company of Miss Wicke, a senior scientist and Pokemon caretaker and one of the Fleet’s strongest mothers, and he was likely the father of many of her children. They seemed to keep it more or less private.

Riddle was a mystery. He turned up now and then, with unusual powers quite unprecedented in the Fleet or among any they had encountered, coming with them for a time. And then he would leave. In the chaotic nature of the Fleet this sort of thing happened a lot, but usually not with passengers living among them; they came for festivals or hitching a ride, and settled down or went on their way.

He was, in short, apparently very well named. Equius distrusted him, in a polite and respectful way, but then he distrusted almost everyone that wasn’t from the Fleet. He saw himself in pretty much the same role as the Big Daddy creatures they had liberated from the Miscella core world; protectors and guardians, and he kept a keen eye on all potential uncertainties.

Steven was less encumbered by fears and he extended to pretty much everyone a universal love and acceptance that was a Fleet model of behavior; everyone strived to be as perfectly nice and kind as him. His continuing dislike of this place was pretty obvious. “Um, I don’t mean to say a swear but… we’re in Hell. Aren’t we.”

Grimlock glanced up. Flying above them were vast reptilian things like serpents but, instead of scales, faces sewn into their sides screamed endlessly, weeping tears that fell from their sides in a stream of a noxious fluid, best not to speculate on what it was. Various winged figures flew, not dissimilar to many bipedal reptilians but somehow… wrong, as if putting on their form could not hide the fundamental horror of their nature. Various parts of the ground liquified into rivers of blood that was also burningly hot, so hot it should have boiled but was magically preserved into a kind of lava. In the distance there were buildings of black metal and spikes, upon which were impaled people being tortured in terrible ways for their great sins in life… and vast war machines, powered by the toils of the damned, moved onwards to a background noise rumbling low and deep.

It sounded like screaming. So many voices screaming together it reached a thousand pitches so low it was a pressure more than a sound.

“Yup,” Grimlock said. “Definitely Hell. Well. A Hell. Dunno about there being a single one.”

Riddle gave him a look. “How do you know that?”

Grimlock returned the look. For a robot who was infamous for his emotional outbursts, assuming he wasn’t just faking them on the spot, he could do a really good enigmatic expression. “How do you know more than they do?”

“I’ve been around. I’ve heard stuff. You?”

Grimlock indicated the land as some awful frog/dog hybrid burst out of the ground, jaws wide and filled with hooks. He grabbed it and twisted its head off without even looking, and set the body on fire with a arm-mounted flamethrower. “Did a few stints with the Dinobots in a few places like this. We got real lost and stuck and just had a fun ol’ time beating the scrap out of every damn thing in sight. That’s a pun, by the way. Damn, and they’re the damned… eh, whatever.” he paused, lost in memories. “Happened a few more times, and then we stayed on purpose, killing all the fiends we could, working our way up to gutting an evil murder god or something. Be a good trophy. Heh… like to see Pearl manage that.”

Steven frowned. “Don’t talk mean about my sword mom.”

“Yeah, okay. Point is, they sealed us up for a few hundred years until we busted loose and got right back to killing. That was fun!” Grimlock joyfully snarled out a plume of flame, thrilled by these memories of righteous slaughter. “So… freeing! Fighting literal embodiments of pure evil! Monsters without pity, or remorse, that deserve none! Actual evil incarnate! No second thoughts, no worry about the moral implications, just ripping apart things that deserve to die. It’s real freeing fighting something like that.”

Equius nodded. “I suppose I can imagine the appeal.”

Riddle grimaced. “ Every time I hang out with you, Grims, you wind up getting nostalgic over murder or something. Don’t you have non-stabbing hobbies?”

“Well, I run a scrap heap art show back on the Fleet,” Grimlock noted. “But that’s not too cinematic.”

Steven, alone, looked to the hellscape beyond, including the pseudo sky. “Something big is coming,” he said, looking queasy. “I don’t… guys, this feels wrong.”

Grimlock sidled in front on hm in a wholly protective and unconscious way. “Stick with me, kid. You stay tanky, I’ll keep the rest of you safe.”

Riddle scowled. “I can fight fine, too.”

“Prove it, meaty!” Grimlock laughed, positively daring him to respond in kind.

Equius sighed. “Can we please stow the bravado-”

“NEVER.”

“-Something is coming!”

A great cloud of rotten dust came up as approximately two thousand feet came marching up, and they squinted at the mass slowly approaching them.

Fiends. ‘Demon’ was a bit of a generalist term these days, often referring to any supernatural being that was broadly humanoid, had a combination of horns or tail or wings, but it didn’t quite refer to evil creatures anymore. Demon was a general description. Fiend was more suitable for describing things that were, quite simply, elemental beings of concentrated evil in the same way that frost giants were elemental cold. They were wickedness, malice and the pleasure of hurting people given a voice and will.

They came now, a huge army that was organized reasonably well, if along old-fashioned paths. At the front were the smallest ones, twenty-foot high beasts suited towards speed, carrying supernatural analogues to firearms fused to their forearms and extended carapaces on the other that served as shields.

Behind them were the dedicated long-range fighters; monsters that were mostly gun or cannon, their jaws gaping and shoveling up all the blood-stone they could get, digesting it into ammunition. Others resembled bows, twisting themselves into gruesome shapes so that imps could slot in arrows over twenty feet long and thick as trees.

Close range fighters, riding dreadful flesh-eating monsters and ready to ride in and leap upon the foe: bloodthirsters, fiends hungry for the thrill of battle and emaciated with the bloodlust. Larger creatures, and at their feet moved the more mobile fiends and those serving all the other purposes of warfare, and these grew progressively bigger, living siege engines and equals to mortal machine-titans, growing bigger and bigger until the largest towered over the entire army, roaring defiance at them.

The army stopped, staring at them.

Shortly thereafter, a tall and spiky fiend that seemed to be mostly folded tendons in elaborate armor, and a sword as big as he was, rode up on something that looked kind of like a horse but mostly like a mix-and-match of various deadly creatures. “Good day, mortals,” it said cheerfully.

“Um,” Steven said, perhaps surprised to see a talkative fiend. “Hello.”

“Don’t talk to the fiend!” Riddle hissed, nudging the much larger man. “What if it enspells you!?”

“I know but… I’m not going to be rude!”

“I am a fiend,” the speaker stated, apparently interested by this debate. “Who cares about my feelings? I don’t even have any. I just assume the appearance of them for interaction purposes.”

“Okay but that’s still no reason to be rude.”

“Bored now,” Grimlock said. “Gonna kill it now.”

“Please, wait!” Equius snapped.

“I gotta. He’s just too annoying to live.”

“Let him say his piece, please?”

“Oh, fine…”

The fiend cleared its throat, dislodging a few gross bits. “I speak on my behalf, the great and mighty Daedric Lord; he who is the Lord of Schemes, Architect of Domination. This realm has, happily, fallen to his conquests and, aha, perhaps so shall you. I suppose you are wondering how you arrived here when, no doubt, your portal excursion was to bring you somewhere more palatable to your tastes?”

Riddle’s mouth opened. “How do you know- oh. Oooooh. You messed with our portal, didn’t you!?”

Grimlock growled, a primordial noise out of nightmare that made them all feel extremely uncomfortable. Even the fiend looked uncharacteristically concerned. “Ah. Well… it was naughty of me, but my lord greatly wished to test his powers against your own! For you see…” He wiggled a finger at them, scoldingly. “Your mother fleet has done much to frustrate his plans!”

“Okay…?” Steven said, warily.

“Going about all the multiverse, interrupting tyrants in their plans to dominate. Interfering in ancient schemes without even meaning to! Blundering right into planets and upsetting careful plots by liberating the populace and then breeding with every single sapient species, and making new ones on the spot! To say nothing of all this dreadful liberty coming across from you introducing new technologies into places that were being perfectly miserable and isolated without them.” It sighed. “I expect the Enemies in the Upper Planes are quite pleased with your lot but… really. This is just bad manners!”

“I hate this guy a lot,” Grimlock said flatly. “I’m going to step on him now.”

Riddle, however, looked thoughtful, as if remembering a report he had seen somewhere. “...Recently conquered a realm… Lord of schemes and domination… oh, shit. You’re working for Molag Bal!”

The fiend looked impressed. “Oho, you caught that one right away.”

“Who?” Steven said.

Grimlock looked surprised. “Don’t tell him anything!” He hissed to Riddle. To Steven, he said, “You’re better off not knowing!”

But the fiend continued. “You see, my lord wishes to match his military might against the power of you four. After all, against one of the last knights of Cybertron-” He indicated Grimlock. “A walking tank boasting impenetrable defense-” This was said to Steven. “A fascinating anomaly such as yourself,” This was to Riddle. “And of course, a blueblood troll with ample boosts to his strength, and gear to accommodate it! Why, this should be a most entertaining diversion for you, yes?”

“Flattering me won’t save you from ending up dead,” Grimlock said indifferently.

Equius sighed. “Then, you will attack no matter what we say. And I expect we cannot leave, one way or another, until this is done.”

“But of course. And you did intend on having a… what’s the term… boy’s night out, yes?”

“...Right. Okay.” Equius drew from his belt a pair of gauntlets that interlocked into his arms. Quad shotgun barrels extended out from each knuckle and loaded up with trick ammunition and projectile gadgets, while the forearms deployed mechanical repeater crossbow arms. The punches stored up energy, the crossbows released it into his very finest shots. “Not at all what we had in mind, but I see no alternative.”

Steven grimaced, his arm swelled up and in a flash of light, producing a curiously organic-looking pink shield, it’s face adorned with the image of a lion. “No one ever just wants to talk things out!”

Grimlock drew from his body an integrated sword as massive as he was tall, its appearance volcanic, it’s black blade bursting into flame as his heroic spirit flooded into it. The Blade of Simfur itself, said to have been wielded by the chimeric machine-god Onyx Prime, passed down through the line of kings of Simfur. “You really think you can talk to fiends.”

“I have to try. No matter how hopeless it seems.”

“...Heh. I gotta like someone that’s ridiculously brave.”

Riddle spread his arms, and magical mandalas materialized around his arm, absurdly complex and ready to summon forth the spells of his choosing. They flickered red, trying to tap into the energies of the multiverse and having to make do with the essence of this hellrealm; he looked queasy and disturbed feeling it flow through him.

The fiend raised his weapon, and brought it down on Steven. “Then let the game commence!”

The sword broke against his shield, in a massive shockwave that knocked him off his steed. Steven sighed and jumped up, and laid a hand against the fiend. Then he grabbed and somehow threw it straight off the ground, into the air, and Grimlock’s fist slammed into the ground while meeting the fiend in route.

Grimlock’s punches were entirely capable of smashing through mountains and planetary cores. The fiend was reduced to a bloody smear. “‘Bout damn time,” Grimlock grunted.

And that was the signal agreed about earlier, unknown to them, and the two thousand fiends charged, in orderly fashion, and the four heroes charged to meet them.

It really wasn’t fair to the fiends, of course, but when you dealt with people who benefited from the powers of the Endowed Fleet, what could you do?

[allineednow]

<p>Zombie Survival Kit</p>

C'mon, we've all done it. You are sitting around you wonder, and binge watching The Walking Dead: how would I survive a zombie outbreak? What do I want in a zombie survival kit? It's a question and makes for a genuinely useful thought experiment. So much so, that in the past few years the study of zombies has become something of a science in itself -- seriously.

Zombie Research is a True Thing

Require , which concluded humanity would be totally wiped out by zombies at a little over three months. Meanwhile, back in 2015 biostatistics researchers from Kent State University published a piece in the British Medical Journal explicitly calling for "funding and research to protect against a zombie apocalypse." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a webpage dedicated to .

All this may seem a bit ridiculous, given that we've never seen a zombie outbreak (except, of course,  on Black Friday).

But that is not the point.

As stunt writer Dr. Tara Smith , our fanciful undead foes are not the idle fantasy they may seem to be. For starters, Smith noted zombies "reflect current social ills or anxieties."

She pointed to the classic Night of the Living Dead, and the way its zombie inducing radioactive satellite represented a mixture of anxieties stemming from the onset of the Atomic Age, then-emerging distance travel and the Cold War. On the other hand, more modern zombie flicks have more of a focus on the pandemic element, reflecting our collective anxieties surrounding "emerging diseases and new pandemics such as SARS, bird flu and Ebola."

Why You Will Need A Zombie Survival Kit: No Joke

These fears are far from unwarranted. At the 20th Century, repeated outbreaks of flu killed or up to 5% of the global population. Worse, in the 21st Century, the capacity for weaponized pandemics is much more real than you may think. Even Bill Gates (think what you will of the man) has cautioned .

This is why zombies are such useful enemies for survivalists. As it , the study of pandemics also has its place for survivalists of the 21st Century. Zombies can be placeholders for any variety of disasters that are biological. Hence, regardless of the diktat of pop culture, any respectable zombie survival kit ought to be focused on protecting against the disease itself, instead of how best to dismember the ravenous undead hordes (though that is still important). In any pandemic (zombie or otherwise), shotguns and machetes will be less useful than rubber gloves and safety goggles.

Zombie Disease Unleashed

So what would a logical zombie survival kit include? To answer this question, I've taken inspiration from a range together with their advice for dealing with disease outbreaks. These include the CDC, , , , and . I also discovered useful. For the sake of argument, I'm assuming we don't have any idea where the zombie disease arises, or how it's transmitted. Therefore, we're going all in for biohazard protection.

The Zombie Survival Kit Checklist

Be ready, don't get caught off guard when the zombies' attack!

Basics

Water: ... and plenty of it.

Water purification system: Ideally, something that removes viruses, such as the ()

Food supplies: Canned goods are an obvious option, while MREs can be beneficial for the survivor on the go.

Duct tape: Whether you are sealing doorways and windows, repairing equipment on the fly, or just attaching a flamethrower to your assault rifle, duct tape is just awesome.

First aid kit: Learn about how to build your own first aid kit here.

Contamination Prevention

Respirator: If you can, go for a military grade full face respirator specifically designed for chemical and biological warfare, like that 1. Don't forget to stock up on filters.

Disposable rubber gloves: Purchase more than you think you'll want. Is a reasonable brand for the purchase price.

Medical grade biohazard waste bags: Recall the lawnmower scene in ? Well if you make a mess, you better clean it up, preferably using bags that will not put you at risk of future contamination, such as these.

Biohazard complete body suit: When SHTF and you are knee deep in zombie guts, you'd better be dressed for the occasion. It may not look fashionable, but the DuPont Chem Suit is a good selection for any pandemic. For a less expensive alternative, consider grabbing a couple of Quick Kits.

Rubber boots: Wet feet suck, especially when they're wet with zombie blood. Kamiks are fairly uncomfortable, but they are good for the purchase price.

Disinfectant: Those clean freaks who sterilize their kitchens such as working theaters might actually have a point. Stock up on your soap, and use it to clean absolutely everything.

Hand wipes: Obviously, you need to go for something heavy duty, such as Tough Wipes.

Drop cloths: Plastic sheets can be purchased from any hardware store, and are crucial for maintaining your safe house uncontaminated.

Combat

Kevlar gloves: Good for battle, and essential for anyone who has ever dreamed of punching a zombie. Is a good choice for situations where rubber gloves won't hold up.

Dead On AN18 18-Inch Annihilator: This will be your very best friend during close encounters with the zombie kind.

A firearm of your choice: I'm not going to wade into the debate over which firearm is best for mowing down zombies, so just go with whatever you feel most comfortable with.

Armor: If you don't want to end up like the disemboweled biker at the end of Dawn of the Dead, then you will want some armor. Damascus Gear has a good reputation, and its FlexForce Riot Control Suit is second to none. If you would prefer something milder, consider the Fox Racing Titan Sport Protective MTB.

Night vision goggles: Not essential, and ridiculously expensive. But hey, the zombies don't sleep, so why should you? ATN's NVG7 goggles are industry standard, but be ready to really bust the bank.

Are you ready? Is your zombie survival kit packaged?

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #1: Storm.

Written: 12/15/2016

Thunder and lighting crashed over the city, rain pelted down endlessly, floods appeared in the lower levels of the city, but most didn’t bat an eye due to the large homeless population, which could now possibly be solved, wind came in large gusts, sometimes snatching up children or knocking cars off of the highway, sending them down into the deep waters of the flood, the moving blood in the veins of the storm. Darkness covered the city, it wasn’t long before black outs occurred, electricity staying in the plants where it was dry, toasty, and safe, commuting with the other volts, that wanted to take shelter from the storm, by powering on and off lights in the facility, some sort of manic morse code that convinced the plant workers that a meltdown was occurring, sending them panicked into the rain, unable to yell over the rain and thunder, and after a while being unsure if anyone was around to hear them, the streets just dark and empty, as if they were in the ruins of some fallen society, lost, wet and cold. An opportunistic man selling umbrellas in the street is caught by an updraft and carried away into the sky, his partner only pays attention for a second and continues to hawk his wares, these hazards, and the sudden disappearance of his friend, allowed him to bump up the price of each umbrella to $35, for the risk. People all over congregated to bars to find company in the dark, sneaking booze of the shelves, overcrowding the places, if the staff had anything to say they’d be tossed out into the storm, the needs of the people outweighing the few, the aggressive and self-centered logic of the drunks had taken over in these areas, and until the storm would pass it had become the new law. In the dark people could start a new, everyone looked equally wet and disheveled, all wore tattered coats, battered by the storm, many met in hotel lobbies, hospitals, churches, and various other landmarks to socialize in the dark, sharing fabricated experiences from when there was no storm, from when the city was peaceful and kind, all working together in that lie to create some fictionalized account of the city, not wanting to call anyone out on their lies because then they could too be equally called out, in several different buildings homeless men would claim to be mayors, business men, lawyers, but the ones who had come up from the underground, the city finally becoming dark and wet, a paradise for them, had only very esoteric ideas of what life was like in the city above their own so they claimed themselves as kings, gladiators, and, for some reason being the most common claim, televangelists. The actual people of wealth and power in the city stood at the top of their sky scrapers, above the clouds, and were trying to figure out what happened to their power, their phones didn’t work, so they’d stand up there and look down at the clouds, wondering if class warfare had already begun, wondering if they should trust their servants, usually they’d be holding a glass of liquor while they did this. A meteorologist looked out his window at home, contemplating his ineptitude, wondering if he should really hold his title if this king of storms, this usurper of good weather, had appeared without him being able to prophecies it, he told those poor people of the city that it would be a nice day, and he had failed them.

A tourist from across the country had just driven into town, surprised by the storms and the blackout, riding along the highway looking down at the abyss below, barely being able to make out dark, moving water down there. She then began to notice that there had been no other cars on the highway for quite some time, and as she considered turning back, seeing the effects of what she first thought was just a mild storm, her car began to be pushed by the wind, she tried to fight it and  turned her wheel against it, and her car went rolling down into the water. Or at least thats what she was imagining when she was suspended in the air, eyes closed, arms over her head to just protect it, and then a crash. Other than a nosebleed and a scrape on her left arm, tearing her favorite, coat she was fine. She looked at her surroundings and noticed the water was flowing below her, her head lights illuminating the raging water. She opened her car door, looked down, and noticed that she landed on top of a submerged bus. She thought that both cars should be crushed and she should be dead, then she started to question if she was. She would have never of guessed that this was what the afterlife would be like. She waited for a messenger of some sort, like an angel, or maybe a mermaid, since if this was the afterlife then clearly all major religions were wrong, since they failed to predict this, which lead her to be open to other forms of divinity. It was a dull wait. She ended up picking up her tour guide for the town and began leafing through it, no information on a storm, but it seemed like they had a flourishing sculpting community, that was neat. She only came to this city because she wanted to visit every city in the state, she let out a short laugh, she thought this was a safe way to be adventurous, but it still ended up killing her.

“Hey, you!” a voice called from the darkness. She rolled down her window and saw a silhouette of what she assumed was a man, because of the voice. “You gotta clear outta here, we need to get deeper into the city, the plants gonna blow!”

“What?”

“Yeah, whole things melting down, we have to get out of here!” This puzzled her. If she was dead then how could she die again, unless there were different levels of the after life, maybe what she thought was the real life, the realm of the living, was really just another after life, from her dying many times previously before. She wondered if narrowly avoiding death was a sign of dying, since when you really died it killed you, but the after life wants to be quiet and unnoticed, so when you enter it it only seems as if you avoided the danger, but really “Hello? You comin’ or what? We’re here on borrowed time.”

She grabbed a warm jacket, a cap to protect her hair, and stepped out of her car onto the bus, which caused her car to fall backwards and splash into the water, headlights shining straight up in the air. She didn’t even know it was balancing. She looked up at the guy on the roof and he started lowering down a latter, she grabbed the bottom and placed it on the top of the bus, then climbed onto the roof while the man muttered “Easy… Easy…” like she was going to be reckless in a situation like this. When she was close to the roof he grabbed her helped her up, it was still to dark to see any defining features on the man. “You okay? That was quite a fall off the overpass, you good to walk?” he said, concerned, she just quietly nodded and he jerked his thumb towards the heart of the city, “We have to move further in to higher ground. The whole city raises up as you go further in so we’ll be safer from flooding the further up we go. Oh shit, where are my manners? My names…” he thought sheepishly for a second, trying to recall names of men he idolized, shit he would call himself as a kid, pretending to be a hero, “The names Biggs. You from around here?” He began to lead her across the rooftops, slowly, trying to find stable footing on the slippery debris covered roof, trying to hold balance with the wind, it was already a lot of effort to talk loud enough to be heard.

“Nah, I’m from out of town, just drove in not too long ago.” A building next to them was struck by thunder, sending a loud crash, physical and audible, vibrations working overtime, that shook the roof and almost caused her to slip, but Biggs grabbed her to steady her. It was easier in general for him since he was wearing work boots. “Thanks. I, uh…” she looked around the city around her, she saw a billboard fall into the street and move with the current until it got caught by the cars stationed in the water. “Um…”

“Don’t mention it.” He wasn’t paying too much attention to her, he was staring across the street, trying to figure out how to get across the flood to the next set of roofs they had to reach. The billboard seemed promising but he wasn’t sure if it was stable, he didn’t really know much about billboards.

“Its not that its, uh,” then she realized the problem at hand, having to holster the inevitable question for later, “Do you know what you’re doing? Is this safe?”

The question echoed his own thoughts, but those were problems for the old him, the version of himself that lived in a different city, with normal weather, and worked at his 5 to 9, uneventful job at the plant. “Yeah yeah, I know this city like the back of my hand, I’m actually a union leader around here,” he nodded to himself, satisfied, “if it weren’t for me none of this area would’ve been build nohow. Like the back of my hand this city.” She didn’t really have any choice so she believed him. “Now lets get to safety.” He motioned her to a nearby fire escape and they began to slowly climb town towards the flood, to the billboard wedged nearby.

The climb down was a slow process, they had to clutch onto the railings and move cautiously as to not slip, the rain lashed their faces. During this monotonous journey down the escape she remembered the question on her mind earlier, “Hey, uh, Biggs right?”

“Thats right, Malone ‘Buster’ Biggs, they put tha buster in there cause of the way I busted up the guys on top, made this here a union city, busted up corruption. That’s me.”

“Oh.. Well, uh, am I dead?” Biggs stopped making his way down the stairs to get a good look at her, but he had trouble really even seeing her face, which made him feel dumb but he didn’t know how to react to the question so he just doubled down on the staring and squinted his eyes, a useless gesture. “Its just that I… I don’t know it made sense to me earlier, that I’m dead, I mean after the crash..” He kept staring “It just seems like it would be reasonable, you know? For all I know this could be the afterlife, the river styx maybe, I don’t know, and here you are to guide me, it just seems like, like-” he kept staring and she sheepishly quieted down, embarrassed now that she had said the idea out loud, it had been a long drive.

“Huh”, thats all he could say, almost inaudible to the tourist. The idea started to mess with his head the more he thought about it, so he started to keep moving. “Well if you’re dead now I’m sure as shit not going to let you die twice.” He was embarrassed by the reply so tried to work down the stairs but more quickly, he figured if he stayed silent she wouldn’t figure out that he was just some schmuck from the plant who lived a little ways from where they currently were, he needed the silence to keep the illusion alive for the both of them.

His response calmed her down a little bit, and she took the silence as confirmation of the after life. All the reasons she went on this trip, the debt, her abortion, her parents disapproval, her crippling loneliness, all of those reasons, those worries, bad memories, were pushed out of her mind. She was dead now and didn’t have to worry about any of that again.