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tanadrin · 14 days ago

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re-listening to season 10 of revolutions, since i never finished it the first time around, and the retrospective on the emergence of socialism in the 19th century is probably the most interesting part so far. it seems to me that 19th century "liberalism" (which was scarcely worth the name) is really a very different beast than 21st century liberalism, which has in its more left-liberal strains incorporated a ton of criticisms of 19th century socialists, and is in many ways actually a pretty good synthesis of both political heuristics. certainly not perfect, and certainly still wedded to capitalism.

but a lot of early socialists were, even if they were social scientists, first and foremost utopians. it was easier to dream what might lie in the possibility-space of useful ways of organizing an egalitarian society when very little of that space had been explored, and the burst of 19th century utopia-building was part of an attempt to explore that space and put many unabashedly utopian ideas into practice. but many of the most ambitious ideas like proudhon's anarchism just weren't super workable in the end, either in the conditions that then prevailed or in the conditions that have prevailed since. liberal democracy--especially as it was refined into something actually worthy of the name--proved both durable and flexible enough to be quite egalitarian in some respects (e.g., it supports universal adult suffrage just fine! and consolidated democracies are pretty robust and quite stable, compared to competing systems). it feels similar to the high-flying hopes of early science fiction becoming tempered as we learned more about what the possibility space of future technology would really look like across the 20th century, you know?

and so i think it's natural that a lot of that early revolutionary energy went into doing politics in a liberal-democratic framework; it turns out to be a very useful framework for liberatory social projects (much more useful than either the halfhearted liberal constitutionalisms of the mid 19th century or the reactionary monarchies they usually contrasted against). but it also seems to me that a ton of the discourse in the rump left that has resulted is stuck in a very early 19th century way of thinking.

and maybe some of this is ideological distillation, with those sufficiently convinced by the virtues of the modern liberal-democratic system naturally falling out of coalition with those who aren't, so the remainder is a concentrated nucleus most likely to see fundamental continuity between the proto-liberalism of the 1800s and the more fully realized liberalism of later eras like the 2000s. plus people who are simply never going to be on board with, say, any system that is capitalist in its arrangement, no matter how prosperous or free it manages to be otherwise. but also i wonder how much of this is because for like 70 years you had a major militaristic, hegemonic state, the USSR, which was really very like the militaristic, hegemonic system it was opposed to in important ways, but which for reasons of its legitimating ideology needed to portray what differences did exist in the starkest possible terms. and the solution to that was to portray liberal democracy as of the 20th century as being functionally indistinguishable from the liberal constitutionalism of the 19th, while making themselves out to be the sole inheritors of the more egalitarian thinkers from the left. despite the fact that the USSR was pretty conservative in a lot of ways, and was basically authoritarian in a way that i don't think any of those original utopian socialists would have endorsed.

so maybe you have to keep 19th century political categories static and unchanging in order to make the dichotomy that supports your state still have meaning. even if, once you have established yourself as the ruling class of a large, powerful state, you act in ways that are actually pretty darn similar to the ruling class of other large, powerful states. and of course trying to maintain those categories even as the world continues to evolve, including the faction you have opposed yourself to (and the third leg of what is really a trichotomy, the actual, unabashed reactionaries, also continues to evolve) leads to further tensions and absurdities, which is why the most ardent defenders of the USSR like the tankies tie themselves into knots of campism and conspiracism and even frequently back directly into bog-standard reactionary ideology, because the framework they are trying to use to understand the world hasn't been updated since the 1840s, and was already having to be heavily distorted by the 1920s to make it work.

#look the anarchists were wrong on a lot of object-level things #but their critique of state power is actually a pretty good heuristic in my opinion #large states are gonna state!#ruling classes are gonna ruling class!

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mitigatedchaos · 25 days ago

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Election 2024

EigenRobot's opinion for you all this election eve.

I expect that whoever wins this election, I'm going to have to shift my writing towards the other side.

Unless Kamala suddenly becomes assertive and independent-minded, very much unlike what we've seen so far, and starts disciplining the left coalition, the capability of institutions is likely to continue to decline under a Harris administration, with something like an amnesty grant making direct future challenges less feasible. Today's left are off-the-charts conformist - I've never seen anything like it - and with this, there is a tremendous disregard for inconvenient reality in the face of social opinion. (It's anti-agentic, which is bad for the meta-rational thinking needed to update formal systems.)

Their selection criteria for personnel disregard merit in favor of credentials, and use credentials as political rewards. With each round the quality of personnel will get worse. This is not sustainable, so it will not be sustained - alternative institutions will have to grow in the shadow of declining state capacity.

If Trump wins, and they start cutting back on agencies, there is likely to be more economic growth, but Republicans don't have a good stack for actually replacing all of these agency personnel with highly agentic, highly intelligent, mission-driven individuals. In a sense, this limits the potential damage, as they'll have to continue hiring a lot of blues due to manpower shortages, just as they already do.

However, the reduction in agency power may lead to increased corporate power, leading to increased influence suppressing the re-emergence of agency power on a correct trajectory and lead to a cyberpunk dystopia. Today's US left aren't set up to even discuss how to prevent a cyberpunk dystopia, because they're all-in on censorship, to the point that they can't even consider the implications of the science fiction stuff happening all around them.

There are two big changes to the dimensions of human life coming down the pipes during the next 20 years.

The first is the obvious one, artificial intelligence. AI increases the dimensionality, the richness of the response, of machines in production systems. This makes capital, as controlled by AI, more like labor.

It is the opinion of Samo Burja that automation will not arrive fast enough to outpace tightness of labor supply caused by collapsing birthrates, which are falling all over the world.

The second big change is genetic engineering.

While people weren't paying attention, the FDA have approved multiple monogenic gene therapies. The costs are staggering now, running a range from around $500,000 to $3 million dollars, but if it's anything like gene sequencing costs, which fell from $100M to $1,000 per genome over about 25 years, it will fall rapidly towards the price of surgery.

If the price does fall, this means that a gene is no longer a life sentence. Something that's genetic will be more likely to be something that can be changed. Most major ideologies right now are based on the assumption that genes can't be changed. Gene therapy has not yet reached the periphery of people's social networks, so, mentally, people still treat it as "sci-fi."

So that's my assessment. The blue candidate is low-variance short-termism. The red candidate is high-variance medium-termism. You have to decide how comfortable you are with risk. You have to estimate what you think the current rate of burn is.

If you can't bring yourself to accept either of them, you can still vote and leave the "President" portion of the ballot blank.

The good news is, both vice presidential candidates are smarter and more civilized than both presidential candidates. For what it's worth, my read is that Vance is smarter and more focused on long-term issues than Walz.

#politics #election 2024

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aestheticaltcow · 11 months ago

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Welcome to the madness that I use as self-care. My name is Ruth.

I'm in school to become a therapist (peep the mental health resources below). Fan fiction holds an extraordinary place in my heart, it all started with Twilight OCs on Quotev when I was like 11. Morphed into some pop-punk band member self-inserts (RIP bandmembertories, it was a weird period of my life but fundamental to who I am now). Now we're here.

My inbox and chat are always open if you wanna chat.

My ode to fan fiction <3

Mental Health Resources

[Disclaier: I am not an LMFT or an AMFT, but my inbox and messages are a safe space. I can and will provide any and all help I can. Never be afraid to reach out to those around you; the world is a better place with you in it, and it's okay if the only thing you did today was survive.]

Tools and Resources The Four Golden Rules of Self-Care The Mental Health Coalition Impostor Syndrome Mental Health First Aid BIPOC Mental Health Anxiety/Depression Online Support (English and Spanish options) Self-Injury Support Eating Disorder Support Sexual Violence Support Therapy Dupe: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Journal Prompts

Master Lists by Fandom

Requests are always open; no promises on when they'll be posted

Stranger Things The Bear Fargo Outer Range Top Gun: Maverick Shameless US

Writing Celebrations

100 Follower Special Birthday Blurbs 2024 Kinktober 2024

Mood Boards

The CK Ad (This is for science... yea... science)

Writing Resources

r/FanFiction Writing Tip Blogs You're not bad at writing Smut Words Words to use when writing General help writing What is... Creative Writing Prompts More Writing Tips Writing Resources and Software Describing Eyes Prompt Masterlist Even More Writing Tips! Writing Worksheets Foreshadowing Tips Writing Notes & References How to Write a Story

AO3 Link

Longer OC stories

#the bear #fargo #stranger things #aestheticaltcow masterlist #top gun maverick #outer range #criminal minds

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carionto · 1 year ago

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I just wanna know if it'll work!

The Monolith!

A massive perpendicular structure - 1 meter deep, 4 meters wide, 9 meters tall - with a perfect 81 centimeter diameter circle cut, with its center 64 centimeters from the top.

Naomi Glasnikova was grinning like mad. She couldn't figure out where to put squares of 4, 5, 6, or 7 in the design without overcomplicating things, so decided to just forego them. It'll be fine, she's sure everything will work out just as planned.

What is the plan, her fellow scientists from the Coalition species ask? To see if placing ominous black metal alloy structures around a planet with primitive lifeforms will make their brains go "Oh, this is different, I should... *think* about it. Yes. Thinking is a thing I can do now. Thus, with the power of thoughts I can look at other things and go "Oh, what if I did this!" and make myself evolve into a civilization (once I figure out how to come up with prerequisite concepts)."

Is the inner dialogue Naomi was having. Her colleagues, both Human and Alien alike, had long abandoned the idea of trying to talk to her about her projects. She would just get into this deep staredown with you while simultaneously not paying any attention to your existence. Her mind begins to race with the possibilities, the what ifs, who dunnits, why nots, etc., and after a few minutes of complete stillness she would suddenly rush out, writing furiously on her digi-pad, often bumping into chairs, tables, walls, other people, one time she almost vented herself from the station. They put a micro-tag on her pad that would wirelessly turn off nearby lights at any intersections that didn't lead to her office. She subconsciously veers toward bright lights.

This latest monolith project came about after one of her equally eccentric interns (nobody knows where they come from, she just seems to naturally attract ones with similar brainwaves or something) showed her an ancient fictional documentary about possible technological developments in the early 21st century. The image of this simpler monolith instantly embedded itself into her mind.

WAIT! I've got it! Four groups of monoliths arranged in different patterns. The group of 16 will make a perfect square. 25 a star. 36 a hexagon, and 49 a... hmm heptagon would be too similar, and it doesn't look right no matter how you shape it.... hrrnnn No wait, a seven layer circle! One in the center, fourteen in the outermost and the rest... I'll do the math later. The areas will need to be perfectly cleared and flat too. Oh! Line patterns on the ground itself. Ones that show core scientific truths! One of the primitives will surely one day follow the lines and map them out either in its brain or on a simple data recording apparatus and see Science! They'll be so stunned! Gotta write that down, get one of the helpful people (her interns, whose names or faces she doesn't even know, yet they don't care either. Look, it's weird, but their kind of non-relationship works out somehow) to begin production. They will need to be made of non-corrosive alloys, of course. Each with a different core metal though. But then the color might change. No paint, that is an unnecessary element. Hmm... Evolution will take millennia, hopefully a few less with my help.

Last month her focus was on making a fully transparent species of frogs to see whether they would go extinct due to being unable to see their partners, or overrun the ecosystem. Nobody has seen the results of that yet.

We also don't know what she's actually a PhD of. Her diploma just says applied robotics, and it is a legit diploma from the Henderson University of Greater Estonia. But her published thesis is on viral infection vectors in sub-tropical moths. We thought she might be a fraud, but the science checks out in whatever she has put out so far. Whatever she is, she is allowed to do whatever she wants. Like most scientists out on these stations now that I think about it.

What are we even doing here, other than... Science?

Mmmm, fuck it, unlimited funding. Let's go!

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #FOR SCIENCE

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junypr-camus · 1 year ago

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Just a good ol’ fashioned girl-hates-government dystopia.

Oh, and mind control.

A CITY WITHOUT BIRDS

GENRE: Science Fiction

SUBGENRES: Dystopia, cyberpunk, hopepunk

THEMES: Found family, change, memories, hope

AUDIENCE: Anyone

P.O.V./TENSE: First person, past tense

Memories can’t be trusted in Seranid. Feisty Terry Silver learns the hard way when she’s forced to flee the utopian City of her childhood, charged with a crime she has no recollection of committing.

Here’s what other people say

“really action packed…. incredibly well written and kept up the pace for the whole book” — Vee Ramage

“I must admit I was totally taken in by Terry and the Professor and the supporting characters.”

“What I like most is that it really takes points from our own flaws in society. The use of the separation between the rich and the poor to cover bigger schemes.”

Interested?

You can find A City Without Birds on Goodreads, and it’s on sale on Amazon.

Or keep reading…

Welcome to Seranid. You’re happy here. Everybody is.

From the ruins of the Pacific Coast rises Seranid, where

“THE CAMERAS AREN’T WATCHING YOU. YOU’RE WATCHING YOURSELF.”

Terry Silver doesn’t know she’s living a lie. She thinks nothing of the status symbol implanted into every Seranidian at birth. She’s unaware of the dissentious thoughts erased from her mind, or the half-truths fed to millions of Seranidians to maintain the paradisial City. Even, of the fact that she may have taken a life. But when the mysterious Professor Camus Remin whisks her from the crosshairs of Seranid’s task force into the Slums, she finds stolen memories — including ones of her long-dead father, and a people trampled by innovation — who call her the Phoenix that will herald the rebirth of the nation. As Terry tries to foment an uprising, she faces more than her own mortality: resurfacing trauma, the deaths of loved ones, and the looming threat of all-out nuclear war. She’s forced to ask herself: what price would you pay for change?

Seranid’s Government rules through division. Knowledge workers: doctors, engineers, teachers, and scientists are kept in the City, a bubble of utopia, while the rest are cast into the Slums, where poverty, disease, and corruption run rampant. Status symbols implanted at birth label Seranidians and feed them propaganda, altering their thoughts and memories to keep them in line. The task force eliminates any remaining rebels.

The Council, the coalition of the six business heads of Seranid, is the guiding force and source of comfort in many Seranidian’s lives. From controlling the weather in the City to providing aid to those in need, they are the sympathetic heart of Seranid. And the driver behind the City’s endless consumerism.

Propoganda

CHARACTERS

Terry Silver: Fatherless and friendless, Terry finds solace in her work: keyboards, droids, and the soldering iron that burned a hole through her cargo pants. Her defiance gets her in trouble when Seranid’s government targets her for something she can’t even remember.

Terry’s first memory | Sketches | Terry’s mirror

Camus Remin: He has a charming smile and a burning passion for physics, but remains a mystery to his students, burdened by past mistakes. He quickly becomes the father Terry never had — but only later does she learn why he saved her.

Quote | Sketch

Marco Luiz: An old friend of Camus and a resident of the Slums, Marco knows the injustices of Seranid’s system firsthand. Both idealist and kind-hearted, he’s quick to sacrifice himself to help those in need — or just cook them some good roast lamb.

OC’s a ten but…

Janette Thornell: Hardened by past failures, the Resistance leader often clashes with Terry. Yet Janette loves those she protects — most of all, Emmy, who knows the secret of her origins.

Janette’s Secret

Emmy Wood: A City surgeon who defected to the Resistance, Emmy is more a scientist than a fighter. But when fate separates her, Camus, Marco and Terry from the rest of the Resistance, the four must learn to fight – and survive – together.

OC’s a ten but…

SETTING

North America, in the distant future…

Three countries share North America: materialistic Seranid on the West Coast, militaristic Leifen in the East, and modest Mirena, caught between the two superpowers. Each has their own way of surviving in this cruel new world, and each has their own flaws.

More Descriptions | Sketches | Leifen | Mirena | Ideals

psst. hey you.

Thank you for making it this far! I got a little secret… I’m planning on making A City Without Birds free for a few days later this year (date undecided). Please reblog/comment if you’d like to be tagged when that happens!

#books on tumblr #indie books #dystopia #bookblr #tbr #books #a city without birds #indie author #authors of tumblr #booklr #sci fi writers #writerscommunity #writing community #writeblr #writers on tumblr #book art #book recs #science fiction #reblog/comment if you would like to be tagged when it's free

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frogblast-the-ventcore · 10 months ago

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USS Sorcerer (NCC-9670-B), Arlington-class long-range fast dreadnought:

(Arlington-class reference art via @MarcSherwood8 on Twitter)

The Arlington-class dreadnought USS Sorcerer (NCC-9670-B) started her life as an Odyssey-class dreadnought, one of the sister ships of the USS Enterprise-F. Like her famous sister, the Sorcerer was heavily damaged in the 2411 Battle of Midnight, the climactic battle of the Iconian War, fought above Earth. The Sorcerer lay in spacedock above Mars for several years as subsequent events redirected Federation shipbuilding towards new endeavors. Finally beginning reconstruction in 2412, she saw several planned refit suggestions come and go - first, she was to be rebuilt to Odyssey-class standard, then to the upgraded Yorktown-class refit, then the upgunned Lexington-class subclass of the Yorktown-class. Finally, in 2414, it was decided that the Sorcerer would become the second in the newly designed Arlington-class of long-range fast-response dreadnoughts, to spearhead a new Federation effort to explore the Gamma Quadrant alongside the Federation's allies in the Klingon Empire, Romulan Republic, Tzenkethi Coalition, and the newly peaceful Dominion, as well as follow up on issues related to the Hur'q Crisis of 2411. Under the command of Captain Yanute, the vessel was relaunched on January 1, 2416, the 5th anniversary of the Battle of Midnight.

The Arlington-class long-range fast dreadnought:

As a descendant of the Odyssey-class, the Arlington is one of the largest ships ever built by the Federation; the subclass measures 1041.5 meters long, 385.22 meters at the beam, with a draught of over 200 meters, and a mass of over 7.25 million metric tons. With a crew of over 900, space for a full Starfleet Marine Corps battalion of 800+ members, and an embarked air wing of 400 personnel, the immense long-range vessel is thusly provided with a laundry list of amenities ranging from an internal promenade/mall, a dozen holodecks, two arboretums, two internal pool/sauna complexes, three main social lounges, and dozens of observation areas.

Able to maintain quantum slipstream travel for a full six hours, the Arlington-class combines its impressive speed with some of the heaviest firepower ever added to a Federation vessel. Boasting 29 MkXV phaser arrays, 4 light and 4 heavy MkXV pulsed phaser cannons, and a whopping 14 multipurpose torpedo/probe launch tubes. These tubes are capable of fully automated loading of the full Federation probe range, as well as photon, quantum, and transphasic torpedoes, the latter-most only available in limited quantities due to weapons limitation treaties.

In addition, the Arlington-class carries over the Lexington-class's phaser spinal lance, capable of devastating damage against vessels even larger than the Arlington. The phaser lance has been colloquially nicknamed the "Wave Motion Gun" by Lexington- and Arlington-class crew members, as it's immense energy discharge resembles that of a similarly devastating weapon from a late 20th century Earth science fiction franchise.

The Arlington also plays host and mother ship to an Eagle-class light "parasite" escort, itself a formidable and agile vessel, armed with multiple phaser arrays, four phaser cannons, and four torpedo tubes. A full wing of 60 Federation Aerospace Force Valkyrie aerospace fighters, falling under the command of the vessels' Commander Air Group, rounds out the vessels' firepower.

Defenses consist of a quadruple-layer hyper-capacitor-based metaphasic shield array, a full meter of albative armor, and a full suite of phaser- and microtorpedo-based CIWS systems; the Arlington is also fitted for but not with a Nanotech Molecular Ablative Generator field array, based on technology from an alternate 25th century.

#star trek #star trek fanfiction #uss sorcerer #crew manifest

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groundrunner100 · 4 months ago

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Will do a BIGGER poll later.

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pedroam-bang · 1 year ago

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)

#2016 #2029 #gif #gaming #science fiction #cyberpunk #Deus Ex: Mankind Divided #Deus Ex #Mankind Divided #Adam Jensen #Talos Rucker #Augmented Rights Coalition #ARC #Illuminati

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homestuck-fanauthor-coalition · 5 months ago

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Palace of Cold and Silence

Palace of Cold and Silence (15809 words) by JonayaRiley Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Homestuck Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Characters: Jane Crocker, Jade Harley, Jake English, Roxy Lalonde, Rose Lalonde, June Egbert, Dad Crocker Additional Tags: Horror, Alternate Universe - Alternian Invasion, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Pre-Sburb (Homestuck), Isolation, Murder, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - 1990s, 1980s, 1990s, Diary/Journal, POV First Person, POV Jane Crocker, POV Jade Harley, Government Conspiracy, Government Agencies, Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Scientists, SBURB (Homestuck) Summary: On an Earth in 1989, Jane Crocker is on an expedition to the Antarctic to uncover a mysterious ruin and the reason for the disappearance of the previous team sent to find its secrets. On another Earth in 1999, Jade Harley leads Project SunGlass, an enigmatic government program that finds itself tasked with sorting through the bizarre logs found in the Antarctic ice and dated to 1989. A 1989 that never happened. As the two women unravel the mysteries of their respective timelines, their fates become inexorably linked as they discover the secrets of the ancient past, parallel timelines, and a game that they are both fated to play.

~~~~~~~~

written by @jonayariley ; one of the newest members of our Coalition, this story brings to another world entirely! M^3 really loves the beauty of the diary as a storytelling medium, as it reminds her fondly of a detective-pony-esque immersive experience! But don't worry, there's an accessible text version too!

#jane crocker #jade harley #jake english #roxy lalonde #sburb #june egbert #rose lalonde #dad crocker #homestuck #homestuck fanfic

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moonshine-nightlight · 2 years ago

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Snapped - Part 2

Mech’s not sure why the aftermath of this mission is hitting him so hard, but he’s doing his best to calm down when Gwen’s presence shatters his control. Now it’s a count down to see if he can figure out how to put a stop to the instincts and hormones that are running wild inside him—before he does something they’ll both regret.

Science fiction, alien romance, male alien x female human

Story Status: COMPLETE

AO3: Snapped Chapter 2

[Part 1] Part 2 [Part 3] [Part 4 - NSFW]

Gwen always knows when he’s acting gruff because that’s his default attitude and when he actually needs the space, needs the quiet. She follows him silently, casually messing with her screen to make sure he doesn’t feel any pressure to talk, but he can feel her attention on him regardless.

Part of him is pleased by that, in the way he always is when he has her attention, but the growing part is more thrilled than usual, is already planning how best to prove he deserves her regard, how to convince her to keep her attention on him, only him. He presses his lips together to keep everything he wants to say trapped in his head where they belong.

Mech resists the urge to quicken his pace, determined that these ridiculous hormones not make him rush, not betray how tenuous his control feels at the moment. Usually, his grip on displaying emotions and not giving into them—no longer regulated for his people, but large displays of emotion in public is still generally considered vulgar—is solid.

What many consider a graviel’s typical lack of emotions is merely habit and politeness these days, as they’d never managed to breed or medicate those emotions out, no matter how much the coalition had strived to. With the coalition overturned, there were plenty of graviels who choose to show their distaste for past norms by letting every stray thought show on their face, but most still played things very close to the vest when compared with the other species out here in space.

Between the common demeanor which most read as stern, the counterculture berserkers, and the intimidating vibrant red, orange, and yellow colorings most had, rumors about graviels spread far and wide from their corner of the galaxy. Sometimes it was useful—common knowledge of his unique biochemistry is what granted him the private, personal medbay that they are now heading towards. Socially though, it was often a detriment. People tended to be either intimidated or determined not to be intimidated with false shows of bravado—all of which grew tiring very quickly.

Gwen was one of the few who had been neither. Mech had been suspicious at first, expecting her casual facade to fade over time and betray which camp she belonged to. Yet it never had. Instead, one day, she’d called him out on his own attitude and how he’d been looking for fault in her reactions which she explained, in clear concise detail, were only the consequences of his, admittedly poor and suspicious, attitude. They’d both backed off that day and slowly, tentatively, come to a new understanding which had blossomed into one of the richest, most rewarding relationships he’d ever had.

And now it’s all in danger because some stupid primitive hormonal shift out of his control. Mech tries to focus on his frustration with the idea that something so stupid could mess up this precious connection instead of all the reasons to push the edges of their relationship like his instincts are whispering in his ear to do.

The impulses are getting stronger and he knows he hasn’t hidden his relief at finally reaching the medbay from Gwen well enough judging by the way she looks at him with mounting concern. The door swishes open at his touch and for once he goes in first, instead of ushering her ahead of him. He knows he couldn’t handle her so close to him as she would need to be in order to walk by him.

Without looking back at her, he can sense her second of hesitation, her notice of this change to their normal, but he steadfastly refuses to look back. He walks over to the monitor and instantly begins calling up the diagnostic software.

Mech wishes the small medbay next to his quarters was bigger, wishes her scent wasn’t already flooding it. Humans, always giving off so many pheromones and scents, spilling their chaos everywhere.

He loves it most of the time. He hates it right now.

“So, now can you tell me?” Gwen asks and honestly it's a good show of her restraint that she waited until they were in private to push again. Gwen’s always been the curious sort and he doubts this is any different.

He just grunts in reply though, not sure where to even begin to explain. The noise in his head is a cacophony of sexual impulses and desires he can only ignore by single-mindedly focusing on putting together something to shut them up, even temporarily, so he can think and find a more permanent solution. He needs to create the largest hormonal dampener—without actually knocking himself out or putting his mind into a loopy haze—that he can.

He hates having to do so, hates going back to that past history of his species, but the sad truth is that many such concoctions do exist, he just needs to pick the one with the most tolerable side-effects.

Methodically, he begins going through the cabinets as soon as he sets the database running through possibilities for treatment. He’s never been so glad he has his own medbay and that everything is in his native language so she can’t read it. He doesn’t want her to know about this weakness of his, this lapse in control. It’s too shameful, too revealing.

“Seriously, Mech?” Gwen says, insistent and annoyed. He chances a glance in a mirrored jar to catch a glimpse her glorious form and has to swallow the venom pooling in his mouth at the sight. Her hands are on her hips—never a good sign and yet, he’s always had a soft spot for the heat of her anger. Well, perhaps soft spot is the wrong turn of phrase for what a feisty Gwen does to him.

“What’s going on?” her tone is no-nonsense and supportive at the same time and he wants to let it all just spill out.

Every second that goes by makes it that much harder to war against his instincts. Instincts that have suddenly decided he needs to claim his mate before she is taken away, by death or rivals—by anything. The fact that she isn’t actually his mate doesn’t matter to the primal beast within. Only that he wants her to be, desperately. Only that she hasn’t rejected him, since he’s never bothered to ask when he knows the answer. Only that she cares about him enough to fool his hormones into thinking she’d be receptive.

“Told you,” he replies, pulling down bottles and ignoring the extra layer to his voice—a deeper, throatier tone that betrays what he’s fighting so hard to control. “Personal problem.”

“Yeah, well, that’s useless,” Gwen replies, throwing her hands up. She’s not wrong—that’s sort of the point of giving an answer like that. Half the time Gwen is good at taking the hint, but if she’s actually worried then— “And I don’t see what it has to do with me. So if you’re just gonna ignore me, then I might as well go—”

“No!” He’s suddenly in front of the door out, his typically black eyes wild—glowing with orange light strong enough he can see it on her face. She freezes, finally eyeing him like the beast he’s turning into. His claws lengthening, starting to drip with venom that isn’t harmful to humans, not exactly, but still instinctive given his need to keep her here. He tries to calm down, tries to breathe, but her scent is everywhere—all of his senses heightened and trained on her. He tries another tactic, reminding himself that she’s here—she’s just worried about him, she’s not going to leave.

“I. Apologize,” Mech grits out. “I will try to explain. Just please.” He knows she can hear the desperate edge to his voice but he can’t bring himself to reign it in, “Take it back.”

Only now Gwen isn’t showing any fear, like a sane person would at even the hint of an out-of-control graviel. It looks like she was just startled. She only looks worried—for him. “I’m sorry, Mech. You just…” she trails off and he feels himself lose some tension as she continues to stay where she is, as she makes no move to disappear. But he stays where he is and she seems to realize that. She frowns, but figures out what he’s waiting for before he has to clarify. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says clearly, meeting his eyes sincerely. “Promise.”

He feels the spines along his back and arms slowly relax—he hadn’t even realized they were up. He closes his eyes, breathes in another lungful of Gwen tinted air. His eyes are back to normal as carefully he moves back towards the bench. “I don’t mean to—” he cuts off the excuse before he can finish it. “It’s very hard to think right now. I… need…” He shakes his head, finding words to say to her that aren’t just a list of what he wants to do with her—carnally—fails.

“Take your time,” Gwen soothes. She hops up on the med table. “Just… let me know what I can do to help.”

He pushes down the image of her spread out across the table, skirts up around her waist as he— Mech staggers to the workbench, combines the last few compounds. It spins together while he continues to work on his control. It's not working, every second that passes he can feel the strain growing. “Talk.” It takes him a second to realize he was the one who spoke, his voice still far too full of gravel. He nearly doesn’t recognize it. His eyes flick to her face and away. “Could you…just talk about something? Anything?”

Gwen picks up on his need for distraction easily. After they got over the first hurdle of their initial misunderstanding of each other, she’s been more in sync with him than anyone else he’s ever met. “Sure. Staci knows some people here—it's why we’re parked for free.”

She chatters on about their crewmates for a few minutes while the sedative mixes and he holds completely still—a rigid statue in all but substance. His thoughts try to hold onto what she’s saying, but he’s focusing on the way her voice sounds more than anything. How she would sound as he carefully coaxed her to ecstasy.

His thoughts narrow down to, wait, wait, wait. One more moment. Just need to wait for—a small ding sounds and he can’t help but lunge for it. He doesn’t bother drinking it, taking the vial, fitting it into a syringe and plunging it into his thigh. Luckily, his aim is true and he hits the vein, even aiming through his clothes.

She gives a small yelp of surprise at the abrupt motion, the desperate way he acts.

It doesn’t matter because he can feel it helping—cool numbness spreading slowly through his system, dampening the fever and the need to take her. The hormonal haze dissipates to something that can coexist with rational thought.

Mech breathes in and her scent no longer makes his fingers twitch with the urge to feel her. Well, no more than usual. He’s long perfected the art of ignoring those urges and he’s finally able to do so again. He feels his grip on himself tighten mentally and he slumps in relief.

He won’t make a terrible mistake, he won’t ruin their friendship—he won’t expose himself and have her reject him, tainting their relationship irreparably.

“What was that?” Gwen’s voice shakes as she asks and he realizes just how much effort she must have been putting into making it seem like everything was fine. Because she’s not anymore. Her honey brown eyes are wide with worry and concern. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I will be,” Mech’s voice is still rather rough, but he sounds more like himself. “I’m sorry for worrying you. I…” He reaches up to run his fingers through his thick hair. “I seem to be suffering under the effects of some abrupt and intense internal chemistry problems.”

She seems relieved to see him acting more like himself, that he’s speaking in full sentences with more of his usual precision, but her eyes narrow as she considers him. “Something happened back there, didn’t it?” Gwen asks shrewdly.

“Yes,” he admits, not bothering to ask when she mean—there’s no point in trying to deny that. “No idea why, but it did. Let’s just say after generations of my people controlling themselves chemically, that it’s left us with an unpredictable element to our biology. Even though we’ve stopped and are trying to recover from that sort of…repression, it’s not an exact science. Flare ups happen.”

“Right,” Gwen says slowly. He knows she’s always paying attention to what he reveals about himself—there’s a certain intent look she gets in her eyes. Not to mention what research she might have done beyond what he lets slip. Hopefully she knows enough not to press too much. That he can say just enough to weather this storm without her finding out the exact nature of the ‘flare up’. “And that’s what that was?”

“What it is,” he corrected because it's important she not completely let her guard down. “I only slowed the reaction down with that shot.” He grunts as he pulls out a heavy metal case—it contains all the rarer substances from his home planet. “Now that I can think, I need to figure out how to stop it and flush out my system.”

“What does this all have to do with me?”

He freezes for a second before he goes back to cataloging what he has at his disposal. Leave it to his clever human to ask the right question. “My instincts are in turmoil right now,” he settles on. “Having you here—it helps.”

“Why?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. A cheeky grin spreads across her face as her legs swing lightly against the table, as Gwen starts to relax the longer he acts like himself again. “Because I’m your favorite?”

Mech barks a laugh at the echo of his thought from earlier on her lips. “Exactly.” Then the mirth slides from his face. “The idea of letting you out of my sight, where something might happen to you is… Unbearable. Even more than usual.”

Gwen’s face softens and her hand twitches as if to reach out to him. It settles back in her lap, evidently she remembers what he had done earlier to avoid said touch. “Mech, I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re all fine now.”

“I know,” Mech says gruffly, feeling like a child after a nightmare, upset even though he knows it's over and unable to believe in current safety despite every evidence that it is. “I know. Just, indulge me.”

“Of course,” Gwen says graciously—obviously not completely understanding the nuts and bolts of the situation, but seeing enough. As always. “Anything more helpful I can do though? You know me, I hate to sit around on my hands.”

That sends a spike of heat through him. He can think of a number of ways she could help him out, no hands required. His eyes flare and he tries to breathe through the sudden impulse.

This sedative isn’t gonna buy him nearly as much time as he thought.

“Mech…” She notices his reaction, no matter how quickly he’d clamped down on it, because of course she does. Sliding down from the table, she reaches out to him—obviously having decided it's worth the risk. Normally her touch calms him, but he knows it won’t right now so he ducks out of the way, putting a cart between them.

“Sorry,” he says, a pang of guilt at her hurt expression. “It's complicated. You can’t touch me. Would make it worse.”

Her face screws up in confusion. “Why?”

“Just will. Need to balance all the, the factors,” Mech turns back to the computer and feeds it a drop of blood, the brief stick of pain helping. “Territorial instincts can be contradictory. Need you close, but not too close or other…” The computer beeps and his heart sinks as he reads the report. A rare condition, with minimal case studies and all reports of this happening have been with mated couples, not unmated ones. Well, there’d been one who’s mate had died a month prior. He did not survive the imbalance.

Mech slams his fist into the desk in frustration. A flask on the counter jolts wildly in reaction and starts to tip over. Mech reaches out a hand to stop its fall at the same time Gwen does. Her hand lands on the back of his. His hand instantly flexed at the feel of her soft skin against his own, as the nerve endings zip with pleasure at the touch of the one he desires.

The flask gives a short whining creak before it shatters under the pressure he’s exerting on it. Cursing again, Mech pulls Gwen back, his tail looping around her elbow to tug her away from the glass as he lunges for a towel.

He ignores her squawk of protest at his actions and focuses on the fact that glass could hurt her so as to ignore the feel of her under his tail.

It’s only when he’s cleaned it all up in record time that her voice finally breaks through. “Mech! You’re bleeding. Let go of me,” she gives a short tug to where his tails is looped around her arm, “and let me help. I know how to act around a little broken glass.”

He blinks down at the towel he’d been using to see some streaks of dark blue staining it. With a grunt, he drops it down the disposal shoot and grabs a roll of bandages. As he sprays the shallow cut across his palm with disinfectant, he tries with the rest of his focus to convince his own tail to unwrap from Gwen’s arm. Even after he’s secured a neat bandage to the cut he still can’t even feel, he’s not made any progress in releasing her.

“Mech?” Gwen’s voice has a tremble he hates in it. “Will you say something? You’re…just look at me, please?”

He’s never been able to refuse her before, not really, and there’s no chance of him doing so like this. He sets down the roll of linen and turns to look at her.

Her eyes widen at the glow in his own, the shame in his eyes must be obvious at how he’s lost control of this reaction too, just like his thrice cursed disobedient tail. “Mech, I thought… This still seems pretty bad,” she settles on. “And, I’ve gotta be real, you’re confusing the hell out of me. First you don’t want me to leave, but then you don’t want me too close. Now you won’t let me go.”

Mech’s hand shakes for a second before he grips the edge of the counter so the tremor is disguised. He knows he’s being a contradictory bastard. “I—Am I hurting you?”

“What? Of course not,” Gwen replies, sincere confusion in her face helps some of the shame at his brazen actions, but it also encourages him. His tail’s hold loosens but the amount of skin it’s covering grows as the tail lengthens. Gwen twitches a little at the move, before she ignores it to keep her gaze fixed on him. “But I don’t get it and I can’t help if you keep being so vague. Please, just drop the pride for a minute and talk to me. We can pretend it never happened, but you know you work better with someone to talk at. I don’t even care if you go over my head with the terminology. But stop trying to pretend this isn’t happening and that you have to solve it on your own.”

Mech closes his eyes because she’s so right, damn it all. He often can’t make sense of his own thoughts unless he talks aloud. Gwen’s his best sounding board and she asks just the right questions that let him make the necessary connections needed to solve problems. This isn’t any different, but it has to be, because he can’t tell her. He’ll lose her for good if she finds out what he wants. And, for all its his hormones dialing everything so far beyond usual, he does want her. More than anything he’s ever craved in his life.

But what choice does he have? How closely can he walk that line with his body turned against him like this?

“Alright, alright,” he gives in. “I’ll try to explain.”

[Part 3]

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fruityyamenrunner · 1 year ago

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I have framed Rationalism as a religion before. You have an afterlife (with burial practices) (cyronics) in paradise (mind-uploading into the Dyson Sphere), a deity (Super AI in the future) or an evil deity (Evil Super AI, or Clippy), though obviously these things are framed in more materialist terms. (In fact, there are dueling intuitions over who is "cheating" when it comes to mind-uploading - it's argued that those who say it won't happen are insufficiently materialist.)

But I tend to think about it from the opposite direction that you do.

Progressives have mystified the biological layer of humanity, turning it into an unexplained force that can then be condensed into 'magic.' (This is due partly to their political coalition commitments selectively eroding their epistemics.) As a result, they believe that capital is 'white sorcery' ("decolonize mathematics," "objectivity is white supremacy culture," etc).

Destroying productive capacity for no reason is bad, seeing as people depend on industrial capital for survival - we are well above historical subsistence farming population levels.

Cremiuex discussed a study in which the more Christian people or areas in Germany were prior to World War 2, the less likely they were to join the Nazis.

It's unclear if it's possible to entirely avoid huge numbers of people having something religion-shaped. (That's one of those suspicious things.)

The Rationalists generally grew up among the blue tribe, stick to a lot of their norms, and find the red tribals somewhat alien. But when the new religious wave hit, they did not convert. Why?

One argument, which you wouldn't believe, is that Rationalists are sincere skeptics and atheists. Another argument is that they drew a line out from the human genome project, made a projection of increasing technological progress (like they did with computers), and then made a rational bet that genetics is likely to come under the influence of industrial capital in their lifetimes. (This inverts the value of the existence of genetic differences in individual outcomes, as that becomes "what's easy to obtain with industrial technology," much easier than "solve history.")

Another argument would be that they already had a religion.

Yeah, that religion seems like it was often Judaism. You got any numbers on how many Jews voted Nazi in the 30s?

Rationalism, as in Yudkowskianism, isn't that important, I don't think, except as one of many science fiction and human potential cults.

Why wouldn't I believe Rats are sincere atheists and sceptics? Most of them are. The ones who do retain Judaism seem pretty insincere about it, and about the ones who do shit like going Papist, the least said the better.

You name the precondition of mystification when you talk about "the biological layer of reality": people who talk about "biology" when they mean "life" are telling you how much they can't avoid seeing clergy when they try to think about the world because "biology" is what biologists do, not what living things do. "Biologists", among other things, join the Nazi party, so if you insist on seeing people as "biological", why not become a Nazi standing on your head?

#pritchcraft

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noveldivergence · 11 months ago

Text

project intro - a plague of shadows

𝐀 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐦𝐞, 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐫 𝐎𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲, 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐲𝐚𝐫𝐢 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐦, 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐞. 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬.

genre: science fiction with fantasy elements status: in progress on first draft pov: third person, past tense content warnings: death, disease, murder, cannibalism, pandemic, xenophobia, colonialism, imperialism, eugenics themes: colonialism, imperialism, xenophobia, cultural relativism and cultural destruction, women's rage, "no good choices" tag: "a plague of shadows" misc. key phrases: morally gray protagonist, space dragons, alien fungi, extensive worldbuilding

𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲:

A mysterious plague has hit the planet Talome, the capital of the United Coalition, affecting millions of Talomar and related alien species. After all attempts at finding a cure have failed, the Coalition are unexpectedly contacted via message from the Nyari Imperium: a millennia old enemy on the other side of a longstanding intergalactic Cold War. An offer of peace and promise to work towards a cure are suspicious after centuries of silence, but the rising death toll forces the issue. Ottilie Khan is a human diplomat seeking to make her mark in the United Coalition political ladder as an ambassador. When the opportunity arises to be a part of the mission to the Imperium, Ottilie is one of the first chosen from the reluctant ranks. Along with a seasoned Talomar ambassador and a team of doctors and medical researchers, Ottilie heads through the galactic storm barrier powered by ambition and hope. Despite being the ones to extend the offer, however, the Nyari are proving difficult to meet on common ground. As negotiations begin to break down, Ottilie discovers secrets that could bring the imperial palace to ruin, at the cost of a cure. She and her companions must make difficult choices and navigate murky waters as they gain an altogether new goal: save the peace talks, find the cure, and keep the already shaky alliance from destabilizing into a war that neither faction can afford to endure.

𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬:

Ottilie Khan (autistic, queer, South Asian): Ottilie has spent most of her life researching the Talomar and studying their culture in preparation to be an ambassador. When the plague begins, few others are willing to step forward for the diplomatic mission to the Nyari Imperium out of fear, but Ottilie volunteers out of her own anxieties of potential loss--not only of her Talomar friends but also all of her future plans to ascend the Coalition diplomacy ranks. Xanthe Quarnstrom (Black, lesbian): Xanthe is a xenovirologist, studying alien diseases which affect both humans and the Talomar. She finds herself at a loss when the plague hits, and in a sense of desperation to save her charges, volunteers for the dangerous mission to the Imperium to attempt to synthesize a cure. Xanthe's ambitions lie solely in helping people, and she's never quite approved of the level of her friend and colleague's ambitions. She is engaged to Madeleine, whom she must leave behind to travel to the Imperium. Aften Vansc (Talomar, aspec): A native Talomar doctor and medical researcher, Aften is willing to forego his own fear and xenophobia against the Nyari in a last ditch attempt to synthesize the cure to save his people. However, he did grow up on stories of the horrors of the savage worlds beyond the Coalition spaces; therefore, he's not terribly keen on trusting the people his species has been in a Cold War stalemate with for centuries. His willingness to help people is altruistic but not wholly unselfish. He is seen as idealistic by the standards of the pessimist-realist society of his planet.

#wip intro #writeblr #writing #original characters #writblr #writeblr intro #writing community #writers of tumblr #science fiction #sci fi

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