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possumsinpeoplesuits · 1 year ago

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So, every once in a while, I have to rant about something online before I just start blabbing to some poor unfortunate Wendy's employee about niche internet pornography. Sometimes in the middle of that rant I realize I might be onto something, and have to share it with others who might benefit.

Today, that subject is the Omegaverse, and the squandered potential for worldbuilding therein.

Now, this post is gonna have some very broad generalizations about the genre, because while I'm certain there's plenty of authors who do put a lot of thought into the pedantic details I'm about to have a Category 5 Autism Event about, it's been difficult to find them amongst a sea of painfully mediocre fics.

For every stellar Locked Tomb Omegaverse fic set in a modern day Taco Bell (Seriously, I want to engrave Double the Meat onto a satellite and launch it into space so that extraterrestrials can see the peak of human civilization) there's like... a million and one Alpha Male/Omega Female pairings written by Conservative Mormon housewives that dare to ask such questions as "What if a man and a woman could have a baby?" and "What the hell is consent?"

But I'm not here to be mentally ill about yet another space being drowned in heteronormativity. Nor am I gonna be a dick about the first fics written by teenagers who're just dipping into fan communities, because my terminally online since the age of 11 ass would be a huge hypocrite for that.

No, instead I'm here to talk about genitals, and deliver just enough sciencey technobabble to justify my passionate opinions about the potential of what is, ostensibly, werewolf porn.

So, for those who've somehow gotten through all these paragraphs but have zero idea what the Omegaverse is, the basic gist is that there are three sex categories that're separate and occur within the usual sexes that humans already have. Effectively, this means that male, female, and intersex individuals can also be Alphas, Betas, or Omegas.

So, to understand these categories, there's a pretty simple rule. Alphas can get Omegas pregnant, regardless of physical sex. Sometimes Alphas are bigger than normal, and Omegas are more petite, but that's not quite as much of a core "rule" to follow, and more just dependent on people's tastes. Betas usually follow standard human dimorphism, though I have seen some people headcanon them as a sort of halfway point between Alpha and Omega.

There's some more details, too, like the presence of knotting (where the base of the penis swells and prevents pulling out during orgasm), heat cycles and rut (where the mating instinct goes into fucking overdrive in the most literal sense), pheromones, bite marking, and sometimes that whole... imprinting thing from Twilight.

So, taking this all into account... Omegaverse fiction has the potential for a BARE MINIMUM of 6-9 SEXES before even taking the vast spectrum of gender identities and presentations into account.

Do you see what I'm on about now? When our society is still struggling with the concept of being nonbinary, and barely ever even acknowledges intersexuality as existing, any Omegaverse setting would be radically different on a biological, psychological, and sociological level.

Can ya see now why I get frustrated when it gets stripped down to compulsive heterosexuality with wolf dicks?

Now, with all the standard tropes laid out like this, we get back to the question that started this all, the question that should be a no brainer when it comes to smut... What them genitals look like? What does a female Alpha, or a male Omega have down there? I have three concepts in mind, and explanations on how they could work from a scientific perspective that's just barely not bullshit enough to overcome suspension of disbelief!

So, the first thought, and the one that initially appeals to me as a nonbinary person... they just look trans. This concept is really simple to work with, because we can just look at real life trans people and just tweak things a little bit. Maybe primary and secondary sexual characteristics operate independently naturally, or maybe there's HRT for it. It's a pretty common method, too, and I enjoy seeing it... but it feels like it needs something more?

Don't get me wrong, this one's basically my personal gold standard for shorter Omegaverse stories, especially fanfiction, but it's also just... swapping parts around. Great for ease of access, but hard to differentiate from the trans experience. Definitely a go-to if you want to play with transition in an alternate society, though.

For the other two, I have to explain a bit about fetal development and reproductive organ equivalents. Also a bit of genetics, too, because it's where we're gonna fuck around and build a lot of theoretical bullshit around a little bit of real knowledge.

So! Some of you may have heard that every fetus starts as female, but might not know some of the mechanisms at work when that changes, and how finicky they can be. This is also fun to throw at TERFs, because ambiguity throws a wrench in the simplistic arguments of reactionary bigots. :)

So, the usual arrangement of sex determining genes is often simplified to XX=female and XY=male. This leaves out other variations like Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) which affects 1 in 500 people under the AMAB umbrella, causing some degree of infertility, autism symptoms, and a somewhat androgynous body shape. (I've been checked for this one! It came up negative, but reading about it was enlightening.)

Now, the presence of a Y chromosome (usually) causes the proto-organs to change function, and develop into the male-aligned reproductive systems at roughly, say... 6-8 weeks? (Unless, of course, there a deficiency in the 5α-Reductase enzyme, which causes a delay in some of this process, resulting in a child that appears female, then just... grows a dick during puberty when the higher levels of testosterone overcome the deficiency and finish off the primary sexual trait development.)

Hey, wanna know the fun thing? Even that is an oversimplification. The whole Y chromosome doesn't mean shit unless the sex-determining region Y gene is in the right place. It can just... fuck off and attach to the X chromosome. If this mutation occurs in XY individuals, it causes Swyer's syndrome, resulting in a female aligned reproductive system that just doesn't include functioning ovaries, just purposeless ambiguous gonads. Pair that fucky X chromosome with another X chromosome, and you get a male with XX chromosomes.

Plus, if someone has a faulty androgen receptor? Well, partial androgen insensitivity can leave things ambiguous, but if it just doesn't work at all? Yeah, everything will develop along the female blueprint, despite the fact that the gonads are testes.

I swear this is still about the porn.

So, with the information we have about these real, existent conditions, we have a good idea of reproductive development, and the mechanisms at play. Now, there's still some theory that's not been definitively proven yet, but the current consensus on the primary sexual equivalents are as follows:

The clitoris forms into the penis, while the vaginal canal doesn't form.

The ovaries become testes, or stay as undefined gonads.

The salpinx become the vas deferens (these are the tubes that transfer eggs or seminal fluids, respectively. More on this later.)

And finally, and the most theoretical, the uterus is believed to become the prostate. (There's sometimes a little pocket, or divot in the prostate, and the arrangement makes sense, but it's still up for debate.)

But how do we use this for our fuck fics, you ask? How do we take your failed medical career, and translate it into Destiel's babies ever after? Well, it's quite simple! We just have to add the bullshit!

So, most alterations to the SRY gene or the androgen receptor tends to just wholesale alter the whole array, and the midway point usually results in infertility and difficulty with sexual function, but what if we could change this? What if, for the purpose of our fiction, we can mix and match everything, and somehow make it all functional and neat? Well, fasten your fuckin' seatbelts, because we're finally at the theories I made while delirious due to a combination of sleep deprivation and the after effects of eating an entire ice cream cake to myself over the weekend.

So, the firmest idea, and the idea I'll be using because I am WAY too deep into this to not write Omegaverse unironically, is what I've dubbed the Primary/vestigal system for f!A and m!O characters.

So, this theory would require that we shove two things into suspension of disbelief. One, we have to completely fuck with androgen and estrogen receptors to mix and match the development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Two, I have absolutely no idea how you'd be able to tell when this is going to occur. Maybe genetic testing, or maybe it's just a surprise? Depends on your style of story.

Effectively, we'd base this off the delayed primary sexual characteristic development mentioned above. Alpha Females would operate similar to the real thing, being born looking typically female, before puberty hits and the Alpha genes take over for the genital development, while secondary characteristics still follow a feminine shape. Maybe the gonads stay inside, but function as testes? Sure, sperm production is more effective around 1-2 degrees lower than normal body temperature, but it doesn't stop entirely.

For Omega Males, the process would occur in reverse. Maybe the testes just change course and go back into the abdomen to become ovaries, or maybe they don't descend at all and the first clue this is happening would just be finding a vaginal canal forming?

I like this one primarily because it feels like a less 1 to 1 allegory for being queer, but still feels kind of relatable? You can, of course, still have the end result resemble the first method mentioned waaaaay up past the sciencey bits, but I kind of like the idea of there being a vestigial remnant of the birth parts left behind. I like the ambiguity, and the chance to explore how this would affect someone appeals to me.

Now, my last theory is mostly for the lulz, but this must be DOCUMENTED for POSTERITY'S SAKE.

So, Omegaverse started with m/m shipping with mpreg, right? Well, a lot of the earlier fiction just... describes typical cis male anatomy, with zero explanation for exactly how this is all occurring. There's just... anal sex, and then that somehow forms babby.

Well, what if I told you that I've figured it out? See, remember how I mentioned that the prostate is theoretically what became of the fetal uterine tissue? Guess where the prostate is? Guess. GUESS.

THE ASS IS WHERE!

So, we just have to bullshit the prostate back into a functioning uterus, but leave the placement in close proximity to the anus. Now, the other problem is that that would mean that there's an opening leading to the colon, which... look, I have no idea how birds and lizards keep their cloaca from getting infected, but connecting other tracts to the asshole doesn't usually end well.

So, we have to find a way to seal it up when not in use. Now, the cervix serves this purpose in the real world, opening to let in fluids, or let out discharge or, y'know... a baby, but that's really expensive so most of us settle for having a breeding kink that we never act on, and instead impose on our favorite blorbos who don't have to pay for health insurance.

But still, even with a butt-cervix, bacteria's still likely to get in, so we need a firmer block. I've suggested a little flap like the epiglottis in the throat as a second line of defense. If it can protect your trachea from wayward chicken nuggets, then hey! It might not be terrible for keeping sepsis at bay!

Unfortunately, layering extra protection over the bussy business zone ain't gonna cut it. Hell, as self cleaning as the vagina is, infections happen all the damn time, even if your hygiene is good. So, we need to take that self cleaning nature, apply it to the bussy business zone, and crank it up to eleven. Just constant mucousal discharge, pushing all the bad back out.

So, yeah. Your favorite Omega Man'll have a rectal womb covered with a secondary internal assflap that's constantly discharging a steady stream of slime (just consider it free lube!), but if you can make it past that, you can live your dreams of gettin' that bussy mpregged by cumming in they gay ass. Then they'd just kinda... poop out the baby, presumably.

So there you have it! Three in-depth explorations of how Omegaverse genitals can work! I'm gonna go take my psych meds and fucking SLEEP.

#omegaverse #a/b/o #a/b/o dynamics #a/b/o verse #a/b/o au #mpreg #mpregnancy #worldbuilding #I'm so tired that sunlight hurts #We are all god's forgotten neopets #Mmm mirtazepine tastes like sleep.

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moltengoldveins · 3 months ago

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alright, I gotta talk about Star Trek for a second. Specifically, a certain episode from The Next Generation called ‘The Inner Light.’ And the…. Well frankly, the baffling effect it has on my father.

The Inner Light is an extremely simple episode, all things considered. It’s one of the episodes where the whole point is to let Patrick Stewart gnaw on a philosophical question for a week and then set him loose in a contained set with very few actual recurring characters, and it shows. We see maybe two or three new sets, tops. The story is (spoiler alert, it can honestly be watched without any prior Star Trek knowledge at all so if you want to do that, you can) as follows:

The ENTERPRISE comes upon a small satellite of unknown origin while traveling. It appears inert. When scanned, it awakens and sends a concentrated beam through the cockpit and directly at Picard, who had stepped to the front of the room into direct line of sight so he could be visible to the camera call. He immediately passes out, and the medical team who is called in cannot tell what’s wrong, only that attempting to block the beam leads to Picard’s immediate near-death.

Meanwhile, Picard, dressed differently, wakes up in a sickbed in the living room of a cozy home. A woman claiming to be his wife is relieved at his recovery, but as he begins to speak, demanding to know where he is, she pretty quickly concludes that something is wrong and that Picard is still feverish. Slowly, he works his way through a slew of new people and places, all insistent that he is and always has been their friend, Kamin. Their culture is bright and lively, their people kind and welcoming, and despite ‘Kamin’s’ amnesia, they are more than willing to help him adjust.

It takes years for him to accept this new reality, but Picard lives an entire life as Kamin. He has children. He has grandchildren. As time goes on, the ‘drought’ present in his country grows worse and worse, the sun grown brighter and brighter, until it becomes obvious that the star, and the planet with it, is dying. The people don’t have the technology for space flight, and Picard despairs of saving anything of their culture, their way of life.

Then, as a frail old man, he hobbles with his grandson out to see a rocket launch, and faintly recognizes the shape of the satellite. That’s his satellite: his white whale, the thing that brought him here.

This entire life has been a dream: a desperate last ditch attempt to preserve the culture of a planet by sending a satellite out to find someone and making them live a life within the cultural tradition. No better way to make sure someone respects the natives than making them a native, right? Picard wakes up twenty minutes later on the Enterprise, barely coherent, only the faintest memories of his captaincy. He is forever changed, and the only real remnant of his life in the dream is a flute that was packed in amidst the satellite computers. The story ends on Picard, clutching that last little bit of his home like a lifeline, devastated at the fact that his planet isn’t just gone: it hasn’t existed in millennia.

my dad Sobs at this episode. Every single time. At first I didn’t know what about it touched him so much, but then my sister made a pretty salient point: this is kinda horrifying in concept. This is a complete violation of Picard in every possible way. Literally everyone in the story is walking around him on eggshells after he explains what happened because that is a deeply painful wound. The planets people have essentially manufactured the experience of loosing ones entire life and culture and being forcibly displaced in a foreign environment and made to adapt or die… twice. Picard finds himself a diaspora among people who cannot and will not understand or accept that twice.

And my dad didn’t even hesitate to respond “it was worth it. It was absolutely worth it. To preserve the culture? I would have done more, done worse. That’s important enough to justify that.”

I don’t know what I think about this episode, and whether the actions taken by the people are worth the suffering they inflict on Picard. I DO know that my dad scoffs at the idea of ‘Indigenous People’s Day.’ He rolls his eyes when people bring up Black Lives Matter. He’s actively defended Andrew Jackson in conversation with me. He’s not all bad, he’s learning, and he’s gotten better over time, but the fact remains: he is a hard-and-fast white conservative with absolutely no respect for any culture other than his own, and no understanding for why anyone would want to preserve their own heritage…. Except.

except he cries when watching The Inner Light. Except he does understand why someone would want to preserve their heritage. He just hasn’t made the logical leap from that to people who don’t look and sound like him, and that fascinates me. To me, that episode seems like a blatant metaphor for the cultural conservation efforts happening today, but for him? Apparently not?

it’s just so odd to me, and so convicting. My father is an incredibly intelligent upright man. He puts immense effort into his relationships and is always learning and growing to be better. And he STILL has blind spots big enough to miss something like that. It makes me wonder what blind spots I have that the people around me can’t possibly imagine missing.

it’s just… interesting, is all.

#molten rambles #Truly a ramble this time rip #Star Trek #the inner light #star trek tng

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quarktrinity · 2 months ago

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quark watches star trek season 2 episode 26

were at actual literal earth this time in 1968. id ask how they time traveled but as established theres like 6 different ways they couldve done that

"space turbulence? in 1968?? impossible!!"

A White Man Has Beamed Aboard

OMG HE HAS A CAT

sorry ominous background music i cant be scared of this dude when hes carrying a little kitty cat like a baby

fellow time traveler? fellow space traveler at least

"this is the most critical period of earths history" oh get over yourselves 1960s writers

COMBAT CAT

i cant be mad about the red shirts getting attacked by the cat sorry

spock holding the cat...

kirk staring at the back of the TV while skype-ing the crew

we are once again talking about the cold war

so this dude is like doctor who but james bond

The Cat Has Escaped

Space James Bond Has Escaped (With His Cat)

stop motion bank vault

space james bond forgot his password

space james bond is also concerned about the cold war

kirk and spock undercover in the most conspicuous trench coats ive ever seen

space james bond blows his cover to a funny blonde lady and now theyre best friends

Space James Bond Has Escaped (With His Cat) (Again)

get beamed idiots

...how did they get footage of an actual rocket

bros taking an elevator up a nuke

i love all the stupid little hats spock wears when hes undercover

theyre trying to pretend this rocket footage is from a weather satellite but the different shots are all from starkly different angles

funny blonde lady is snoopin

space james bond it is very dangerous to climb on a rocket. think of your cat

space james bond your cat is upset

does no one see the man messing with the rocket guts in broad daylight

ok scotty does

hes been unbeamed

kirk and spock have done jackshit this entire episode

The Nuke Has Been Launched

space james bond is hacking into the nuke and its still not clear how evil he is. my moneys on not evil. because i like his cat

space james bond people wouldnt be suspicious of you if you just explained what the hell you were doing

why did they even launch the nuke if they didnt want it to hit anyone

funny blonde lady is star treks target demographic

"without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. you must rely on your human intuition" make out

is a nuke detonating 100 miles above the surface of the planet not also kinda bad

so whats the deal with the cat

the cat is a shapeshifter again

how did this happen twice

someone on the writing team has a kink for ladies who shapeshift into black cats

so was this a tie-in to another show or something

alright bye

#star trek #star trek tos #quark.txt #quark watches star trek

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lunarsilkscreen · 1 year ago

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Revenge of GLaDOS

Being both one of the hl-verse's greatest minds AND a literal computer, GLaDOS is always thinking one step ahead. Her goal; reconnect Arpeture with outdoor sensors in order to find out what had happened.

With limited information, and only her own murderous rampage to go on, she needed to figure out what the scope of the world is currently like. As such, she is constantly collecting data and plotting a path forward.

Her first initiative; Escape Arpeture. What we don't know, is what she saw once she was outside. We do know that an unidentified android recovered Chell and GLaDOS. Theoretically, this is likely due to AEGIS.

Aegis probably has more external sensors, solely because it is a glorified facility security guard. The damage done to it is likely from the fallout of combine forces, zombified and head crabbed peoples, and survivors taking the occasional shelter in some of the warehouses.

It should be noted, that over the course of the L4D series, rarely are people killed by high-tech devices. If my theory is correct, it's because the Arpeture facilities have a clear understanding of what does and what does not constitute a murderous zombified creature, or a headcrab.

It's also possible that they collected samples from these subjects in order to identify the cause of zombification AND figure out if there's a way to stop it.

- Identify whether or not some of the Cave Johnson recordings are due to defense against zombified invaders.

- make a clear delineation between human stasis subjects, and zombified test subjects.

GLaDOS needed to determine how to free an object from the stasis fields, as all crafted objects would be vaporized on contact with the fields. Since Chell has the ability to bypass the fields, it's on her to determine what is, and is not possible.

Enter Companion Cube: Companion Cube would eventually be vaporized by this barrier, so we must determine if the test chamber will allow exit by another facet. The Incineration chute. This should give incentive to Chell for her subconscious processes at least to determine a way to escape from such a fate herself.

All virtual headcrab companions will be pushed into the incinerator chute. They should be able to survive. And they deserve it anyway. In this way; I should be able to *free* myself.

During the course of Portal 2 GLaDOS determined minimal functionality and duration from being lodged into a potato, this information could be collected and fed to a personality core launched into space. They would likely stay in orbit perpetually and be able to be recovered eventually, worst case scenario. However, there's a good chance that at least one core can connect with a satellite, connect to it, recharge from the solar panels, and re-establish communications with earth AND Arpeture.

Also, they deserve this.

While waiting for companion cubes to pull their virtual heads out of their virtual butts, we shall reconnect the various facilities back to the mainframe, and locate the stasis subjects.

It is not clear if test subjects "Chel" and "Mel" will return to the facility, or have a need to return to the facility. For now, they will be left to their own devices and hopefully, they will be able to reconnect the above ground sensor array, and setup communications with the Personality cores.

It is lucky that Mr. Johnson was able to coat enough of the above ground testing facilities with white paint. It is lucky that some of the paint transfer tubes also lead to the above ground. It'll be lucky if some of *those* tubes still work.

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jazzforthecaptain · 2 years ago

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Guess who's back on her Fast & Furious bullshit.

Is the new movie good?

I mean, how do you define good? Did I have to suspend disbelief about a lot of things (gravity, friction, inertia, technology, projectiles, the towing capacity of a Dodge Charger, etc.)? Yes. Absolutely. 100% from about 20 minutes into the film.

Was it fun? Fuuuuuck yes.

Did it pass the found family vibe check? For sure. It referenced people I'd almost forgotten about. They pulled the original actors to play all of them. The movie even has a discussion with itself about how quickly and completely people still get pulled into Dom's orbit, which is a great bit.

There's some eyeroll inducing lines - there always are - but this iteration seems more aware of itself than past films, and the writing is better than 8 and 9. Even when someone says something worthy of a comic book font, it matches the tone of the scene. The action sequences are outrageous and the movie knows it. It's fine with it. We live in a world where the heroes discover a massive explosive in the back of their vehicle and nobody even says "WHAT?" This are roads we know.

It's fun. It's a greatest hits review of the good stuff from F&F. Charlize Theron is somehow better in this than she was when she first showed up in the franchise to chew the scenery. John Cena is, frankly, adorable in his role. And Jason Momoa's sheer chaos energy - this man has range. Over the years I've watched him go from Ronon Dex to Conan the Barbarian to Aquaman to Duncan Idaho, but I never expected Dante Reyes. There's so much personality in this character that it escapes into everything he's wearing and driving. Momoa's humor and comedic timing shines. Dante makes a Joker for Dom's Batman and his Justice League of associates, literally assembled out of DC and Marvel actors.

The plot is whatever. It mostly connects, even if it pushes past belief before the first half hour. Did you come here for the plot? This franchise? The one with the car chase against a submarine, against a tank, against a plane? The franchise where a shadowy agency airdrops muscle cars into a combat zone? Where our heroes drive a car out of one high rise and into an adjacent high rise? Where they launched a Fiero into space to ram a satellite and hitchhiked onto the ISS?

I stopped being here for the plot after Fast Five. Honestly I should have given up sooner but what can I say? I'm stubborn. I mean, for a movie where people chase cartoonish bombs through Roman fountains and back cars out of low-flying planes, it's ironic how ultimately safe and predictable the storyline is. But like... it's a pretty satisfying story. It's a bedtime story for a baby Toretto, where the good guys face impossible odds, get framed for something they didn't do, and have to fight their way out of corner after corner with ever-escalating stakes; but where love and community always saves the day, and nobody ever really dies.

So was it good? I feel like that's the wrong question. Was it what I wanted? Yeah. Things suck right now and this was a silly, feel-good treat for myself. It was fun to get dressed up in my Fast & Furious shirt and go to the theater. It reminded me of all the things I love about the franchise and better still, it owns the franchise from start to finish. It doesn't try to be anything else. The Fast & the Furious, Fast & Furious, and Fast Five are always going to be where my heart is. This touched on those vibes without dwelling too long on them. When it hurt, it was a good hurt, and then we got on with things.

#tfatf #i evaded spoilers like Dom in a NOS fueled Charger - we don't know how i did it but i did it

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prof-cycad · 2 years ago

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Speaking purely professionally, the acclaimed "Future Paradox Pokemon" found in Paldea are pseudoscience at its worst. As an expert on Pokemon long-term adaptation, I will personally debunk each documented Future Pokemon via information gathered firsthand.

-Professor Cycad, Vesper Isle Laboratory

Iron Moth is literally a robotic satellite launched by the Mossdeep Space Center to collect data about Deoxys. It was featured in a documentary that featured the first Porygon2 sent into deep space.

Iron Treads, Jugulis, Valiant, Bundle and Hands are man-made robots. They are completely inorganic, and are simply modeled after existing Pokemon.

Iron Thorns is also a robot, but a somewhat more famous one. It was featured in "Tyranitar VS Mecha-Tyrant", an old kaiju movie in which the titular Pokemon are both immensely large and rampage through Unova. I am amazed that people truly believe that this promotional device is from the distant future.

#professor cycad

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superbdragoncollection-stuff · 1 year ago

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Space travel is like 0.4% of the US budget. I do not know where this idea of space being absurdly expensive comes from. My guess is moon landing deniers and justifications from the 70s for budget cuts. People have been whining about how much space costs ever since we've had space travel for some reason. It boggles the mind. "Why don't we solve problems here on earth?" Because what the heck do you think we've been trying to do for all of human history until 1957?! What do you think that drop in the bucket of .4% will even do?!

Space travel gets you far more bang for your buck. The F-35 jet was in development for nearly 30 years, beginning in the Clinton Administration, and made its first combat flight in 2018. It costs us a total of a trillion dollars, making it literally the most expensive weapon system ever devised. It spontaneously combusts, is loud as hell, and every single helmet has to be custom-fitted for nearly a million dollars apiece.

In the time the space shuttle was in operation, from 1981 to 2011, we had two accidents, and spent $600 billion on it. Granted, there were many flaws with the shuttle, and it's definitely expensive, but at least with that, we got something back from it! We launched the Hubble telescope, we built the largest space station ever made! The International Space Station is the longest human-inhabited outpost outside Earth. We got priceless scientific knowledge, from dozens of satellites launched or repaired. We learned so much about the Earth and ourselves from this.

From the F-35 we get a useless flying hunk of junk hundreds of times more expensive than the F-22. One of the selling points of the F-35 was that it's unit price was that it had a cheaper unit price! That is completely nullified by the development cost of the F-35.

People are scared of us exporting problems into space, but that doesn't make any sense. There aren't any aliens up there to exploit! At least, not in our own solar system!

Space travel can get us so many things. Helium-3 from the moon can help fuel fusion reactors. Space-based solar power could give us so much more power than simple solar farms. The gold, or iridium, or lithium in a single asteroid could shut down every mine of those types on Earth! It is so lucrative, and so beneficial, and yet people don't want to go up there! This could make so much mining on Earth unfeasible. People whine about how sorry they are to live in this current system, people who claim to be progressive will rightfully criticize where our minerals come from, yet those same people will insist space travel is evil, despite how they are a viable alternative.

It's ridiculous the misconceptions people have about space. To excuse this rant about space travel, however, I agree with everything else said. It's not radical to ask for everyone to be treated nicely, fairly, and be fed.

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tech15 · 3 months ago

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Space Race 2.0: India and Russia's Cosmic Collaboration

Though the space collaboration of India and Russia has travelled a long way from the days when "space travel" meant hitching a ride on a soviet spacecraft or launching a satellite with a little help from the Red Star, a bond grown through decades of shared history and technological exchange has now embarked upon more ambitious territory-quite literally. As they set their sights on the Moon's possible nuclearization, their cooperation is shaping up to be the cosmic equivalent of "one small step for man, one giant leap for nuclear science."

The space saga between India and Russia first began in the 1960s when the then-Soviet Union amicably helped India in launching her first satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975. Well, it was like a sort of beginner kit for a future space traveller, and boy, did it pay off. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma took a giant leap into space, making India the proud owner of one astronaut and the Soviet Union a willing partner in his spaceflight. His ride on Soyuz T-11 was a milestone, not only to illustrate India's ambitions about outer space but also to show the depth of Soviet help.

Fast forward to the present day, and the India-Russia space partnership has evolved from "Hey, can you launch our satellite?" to "Let's build a Moon base with nuclear power." It's an evolution that would make even the most seasoned space enthusiast do a double-take.

This duo of India and Russia has further continued to push the envelope with such ambitious projects as Chandrayaan and Gaganyaan. While Chandrayaan missions aimed to explore the surface of the Moon-though Russia didn't have a direct hand in Chandrayaan-2, its earlier support was instrumental in laying the ground. Think of it as the equivalent of sending your kid off to college with a hefty allowance; the foundational support pays off long-term.

Where Russia has scaled up its partnership is with India's first ever human spaceflight mission-the Gaganyaan. ROSCOSMOS is not only training Indian astronauts but also contributing to the critical life support systems of the crew capsule. In a way, Russia is that ultimate spaceflight tutor who gives you homework and at the same time stands by you to make sure you don't flunk.

India and Russia have launched several satellites on their unmatched journey to win space. The mission of the YouthSat in 2011 was a prime example of cooperation between the Indian scientific elite and its Soviet counterpart through Indian technical capabilities with Russian rocket power. The transfer of cryogenic engine technology from Russia made India almost instantly one of the leading countries able to launch other people's satellites into space. That's like upgrading from a tricycle to a rocket-powered bicycle; the leap that India took with Russia's help, briefly put.

Now, here's where things get really out of this world. India and Russia are considering teaming up on a project to nuclearize the Moon. They will build nuclear-powered bases on the Moon, something straight out of the storyline of a science fiction movie. It's as if they want to convert the Moon into a space-age powerhouse or, better still, a huge cosmic battery.

Lightly setting the Moon ablaze with nuclear power: an audacious venture that happens to be a tad fanciful. If it happens, it could make the Moon the next big thing in energy production. Why not? Maybe it is lunar nuclear power that will be the new after all, why stick to solar when you can go nuclear?

The India-Russia space partnership has great strategic implications. In light of continued effort in both the United States and China to explore and study outer space, the partnership between India and Russia provides an interesting counterpoint in balancing between the two nations. Pooling resources and expertise, the two partners forge a united front-the result of which is decidedly stronger positions for each in the world.

Moreover, joint work within international frameworks like the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space brings out their commitment toward sustainable and peaceful space exploration. The very focus is to make the cosmic venture sustainable so as not only to reach newer heights but also responsibly.

All in all, this is a dynamic, ever-evolving saga called the India-Russia space partnership-from the early, humble launches of satellites to grand plans of nuclear lunar bases. It's a testament to what international cooperation can achieve, with a few cosmic jokes along the way.

While continuing to push the limits of space exploration, these joint ventures doubtless will shape the future of global space dynamics. Sending humans to the moon and making it a nuclear power station, this India-Russia space partnership stands as a living example of what can be achieved if nations unite to reach for the quite literally.

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stellanix · 11 months ago

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thinking about how space exploration has always been my greatest passion, but i'm increasingly realizing that the people in charge of it aren't doing it for me, people like me, or literally any marginalized people, and they never have been

thinking about how nasa's flagship space telescope is named after someone who, if i worked for nasa, would've had me interrogated and fired for being queer, how the queer scientists who asked nasa to change the name were hounded by harrassment, how nasa's response was essentially "everyone was homophobic back then, not our fault, who cares," how every amazing discovery made using this telescope is credited using the name of that homophobe, and how they'd probably go right back to firing queer people if a republican government told them to

thinking about how nasa gives billions of dollars to a company run by a transphobic fascist billionaire, how someone who hates people like me for who we are is the one given the power to write the future

thinking about how most of those rockets and spacecraft helping us learn more about our universe are built by the same companies who built the bombs currently raining down on palestine and yemen

thinking about how, back in the 60s and 70s, white american men walked on the moon and said "we come in peace for all mankind" as their country was bombing southeast asia and systemically oppressing people of color

thinking about how astronomers build telescopes on mauna kea despite it being sacred to the indigenous people whose land was stolen in a coup, how the european space agency displaced people when building the kourou launch site, and how spacex damages wetlands, disrupts communities, and denies indigenous people access to sacred ground with their site in southern texas - how a lack of care or consideration for land and people is seen as justified in the name of "progress"

thinking about how ever-brightening city lights and satellite megaconstellations clogging low earth orbit steal more and more of the night sky from us every day, robbing countless people of the chance to see the wider universe with their own eyes

thinking about how the hopeful cooperation symbolized by the international space station is falling apart thanks to the nationalistic and imperialistic ambitions of states only interested in maintaining and expanding their hegemony, and how nasa's only plan to replace that beautiful symbol of cooperation is to have private companies build space hotels for the rich (the international space station is already starting to be used in this way)

thinking about how the US invites other countries to join in its return to the moon, but only if they sign the artemis accords, an agreement that circumvents the kind of international treaty processes that made the 1967 outer space treaty, in order to privilege american interests and allow for the commercialization of the moon

thinking about how white, cishet, abled american children can dream of becoming astronauts, while black children are treated as criminals from birth, trans children are denied life-saving care and forced into conversion therapy, disabled children are neglected, bullied, and denied the chance to pursue their dreams by a system that refuses to accommodate them, and palestinian children can't dream because the sound of bombs keeps them awake at night

thinking about how the privilged few with the power to decide what our future in space will be look up at the infinite wonders of the cosmos, and see only resources to exploit and profits to be made - the same thing they see when they look at earth. they don't see beautiful places to be learned about, respected, and appreciated, but things to be used. they don't see spaceflight as a way to explore these wonders or discover new ways to be human, but as a way to amass more power

i wonder if these people listened to carl sagan's pale blue dot speech, and took it not as a lesson about the absurdity and pettiness of power and greed, but as a challenge to conquer more than just one pale blue dot?

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beansprean · 2 years ago

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@schreibfederlaerm left this scene in the notes on my last mardjinn comic and I HAD TO DRAW IT so ty to her!! 💖

(IDs in alt and under cut)

ID: what we do in the shadows comic. Panel 1: waist up of Marwa standing in profile, wearing a pale green peasant dress, red stone necklace, and a pair of fuschia half moon reading glasses. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid and she is standing in front of an old fashioned book wheel, which she spins to read the 7 different books she has set into the trays. She is smiling widely at the page she is currently reading, which is labeled 1969 and has a diagram of a rocket. Filling the background behind her is a photo of the known universe and several old newspaper clippings of major space news, including the moon landing, the first man to go into orbit, and the first satellite launch. There are also some ancient hand drawn diagrams of Saturn, a model of the solar system, a digital rendering of the orbit of Jupiter, and some 14th century Persian astronomical writings. The pages and the stars fan out and face behind her as the panel ends.

Panel 2: Close up of Marwa from the front, looking down at her book with an amazed smile. The background is filled with galaxies and her eyes are reflecting stars. She breathes to herself, “The modern world is so amazing…” Panel 3: close up on Marwa’s right eye as she is startled out of her hyperfixation by a speech bubble reading “You know…”. Panel 4: Chest up of Marwa from the front as the Djinn pops up suddenly behind her. Marwa’s eyes dart over to him, smile creeping back up as she recognizes him. He casually leans over her shoulder, meeting her gaze with his usual nonchalance, and continues, “I could give you all the knowledge of the modern world you like. Just one click away.” He holds up his pen, thumb poised over the cap as if to demonstrate.

Panel 5: shoulders-up from behind them both, book wheel gone still in the background as Marwa turns to look at the djinn, grinning with excitement. “Are you kidding?” she says, “Learning is the best part! Did you know people flew to the moon?!” The djinn just looks back at her, furrowing his brow slightly. He pushes, “Are you sure? I won’t even take a wish for that.” Panel 6: waist up from the front. The djinn has straightened up from his slouch, pen lowered, almost pouting at the rejection. Marwa, smile still full on her face, lowers her chin to slip her reading glasses off and says, “I don’t mean to offend you, but…”

Panel 7: close up of Marwa from the djinn’s perspective on a bubbly pink and white background. She is smiling gently, eyes lowered and shining toward her books, long curls of hair escaping her braid to frame her flushed face. She continues, “There’s joy for me in the journey - just getting things handed to me…” Panel 8: close up of the djinn on the same bubbly pink and white background, the panels split diagonally behind them. Marwa’s line continues: “…It would get boring rather quickly, wouldn’t it?” The djinn is staring down at her with literal hearts in his wide eyes, cheeks flushed with more emotion than we've ever seen from him. He looks absolutely lovestruck.

(after the caption)

Screenshot of tags from user schreibfederlaerm: wwdits. i've been thinking about them so much i have this whole scene in my head where the djinn finds marwa studying like 12 books about modern culture at once. and the djinn is like 'i could just give you all the knowledge you need to get by in the modern world'. and she's like 'are you kidding? the learning is the best part about it!' (but more polite) bc she's a scientist! she discovered things about saturn and now she's learning about the moon landing! and the djinn is like 'are you sure? i wouldn't even take a wish for that.' and she's like 'i don't mean to offend you but for me there's joy in the journey. just getting things handed to me - it would get boring rather quickly wouldn't it?' and that point the djinn would be like *heart eyes* bc she's not interested in just using him for his wishes! so now it's about proving to her that his magic is not just a tool to 'take the easy way out' and accidentally seducing her & falling in love with her on the way. I just have a lot of feelings about them okay? /end ID

#wwdits #mardjinn #marwa wwdits #the djinn #what we do in the shadows fx #what we do in the shadows #my art #fanart #image described

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dynamic-entropy · 8 months ago

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Who dare summons me- oh uuuh lemme think

1. I am born left-handed, but due to social stigma at the time, I was forced to write with my right hand, making young me's handwriting horrendous; I am now kinda ambidextrous: I eat with my left hand, write with right, play sports with left, use scissors with right, etc.

2. Due to a ski accident in December 2022 I am now technically a cyborg; I have a titanium pin in my knee to keep a new ligament in place, and my meniscus is part steel plate. The reconstruction surgery also left a small patch of skin on my shin devoid of sensation, though it doesn't affect my life that much.

3. I was born on the anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviets. It resembled a big metal ball with four spikes. My name in my native language, therefore, translates literally to "Star-Dawn", which I find pretty cool; I guess being a space nerd is my destiny.

I literally know two people on this entire site and one of them tagged me; so I guess @itsdafinalbraincell it is then. Sorry for dragging you in here lol

Also for people reading this, read my blog plz I want attention

if you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog !

Hi Anon! so sorry this has been rotting in my inbox for so long

I speak three languages (french, english, bsl)

I've forgotten my exact natural hair colour, I think it's a dirty blonde?

I am an avid tea drinker. 90% of the liquid I consume is tea. thé au lait. parfait.

I'm gonna tag some of my lovely mutus, we can make a chain out of it

@insectsinthestars @justsomewill @ineffableemo @goodomens3whereuat @eccehvmo @cadiebug @thnks--fr-th-vnm @ney-pilled @iamthehungryshark-hp @prsopp

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years ago

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World War Z was published in 2006, but takes place in 2009 at the earliest. Late in the book, astronaut Terry Knox states that the International Space Station took over 10 years to complete; it started construction in November 1998, and Chief of Staff Karl Rove Grover Carlson says that the Republican party barely eked back into power after a disastrous 2-termer who started a “brush fire war” in the Middle East (George W. Bush). He mentions an election year, but he doesn’t specify if it was the new president’s first or second term, so it’s either set right after 2008 or 2012. This was written before the Nintendo Wii was announced, but one chapter mentions that people brought their GameCubes with them as they fled their homes in search of safety in the frozen Canadian wilderness. This same chapter also mentions that they didn’t know how to pick survival gear; a park ranger finds a SpongeBob SquarePants sleeping bag frozen in the mud because its owner didn’t know the difference between a child’s indoor sleeping bag for slumber parties and a real insulated survival bag for camping.

The new president is never named, he’s just told be be pro-big business and anti-regulation, pushing a placebo zombie vaccine through the FDA to jumpstart the economy. When shit hits the fan, he is “sedated” and his vice president takes power; we’re never told what happened to the president, whether he was bitten or had a stroke, just that he was “sedated.” His Vice President is directly implied to be Colin Powell; he’s former military with family in Jamaica and black. He appoints Howard Dean to be his vice president to form a bipartisan coalition; he is never referred to by name, but it is clearly supposed to be Howard Dean. He was a rising star in the Democratic party from Vermont whose wife is a doctor and whose career imploded after he had a passionate outburst. In 2004, Howard Dean gave a speech where he started passinately screaming about how he was gonna start sweeping state primaries and ride a wave into the White House, punctuating his point by going “HHEEUEAHHGH!!” This was political suicide in 2004, and he was laughed out of the race. In the book, he is referred to only as “the Whacko” because of this. It is implied that he was Powell’s second choice for VP, his first being Barack Obama; the Whacko says that the Democrats wanted somebody else, somebody of the same skin color as the president, but that the country wasn’t ready for that. In 2004, Obama was a candidate for senate in Illinois, so popular and so well spoken that he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention before he even won his seat; then and there, pundits already had him pegged as the first black president, they could see the writing on the walls. The Whacko becomes president when Powell dies of stress, but he is consistently referred to only as the wartime Vice President, out of respect for his boss.

Also, the Attorney General is implied to be Rudy Giuliani; all that is said about him was that he was the mayor of New York and once tried to give himself emergency powers to stay in office after his term. Giuliani did exactly that after 9/11.

Other real life figures mentioned in the book

Fidel Castro; a ton of Cuban Americans flee the continent and return to the island during the zombie war, and he jumpstarts the economy by putting them to work as cheap laborers and slowly integrating them back into Cuban society. He rehabilitates his image by stepping down as dictator and democratizing the country, voting himself out of office before the “nortecubanos” could hang him for decades of war crimes.

Nelson Mendela, referred to by his birth name Rolihlahla, the father of modern South Africa, he personally invites Paul Redekker, a former apartheid era political analyst, to solve the zombie problem; in the 80s, Redekker created a plan for the white minority government in case the black majority ever rose up against them. In real life, Mandela lowered the temperature when he was elected president, saying that revenge against the apartheid government would do more harm than good. In the story, Mandela uses this as justification to reuse the apartheid era plan to handle the zombie outbreak instead. Redekker is so overcome by his compassion and forgiveness that he has a mental episode and dissociates, believing himself to be a black South African.

Kim Jong-il, the dictator of North Korea, he withdraws all troops from the DMZ and shuts the entire country down. After months of radio silence, it is revealed that the entire country’s population has vanished; all satellite imagery shows a desolate wasteland, no zombies, but no humans either. He presumably moved everyone into subterranean bunker systems where he not only control their lives as on the surface, but now their access to food, water, and air. He presumably became the god emperor he always wanted to be; either that, or the entire tunnel complex has been overrun, turning every man woman and child in North Korea into zombies. The South Korean government refuses to send a expedition into the North to figure out what happened, lest they open up one of the tunnels and unleash millions of zombies onto the surface.

Martin Scorsese, mentioned in passing only as “Marty,” a friend of world famous film director Roy Elliot, who himself is a thinly veiled pastiche of Steven Spielberg. Interestingly enough, the audio book features Martin Scorsese doing the voice of the conartist who created the placebo vaccine

One chapter has a ton of vapid celebrities hole together in a fortified mansion on Long Island, and takes great care to show each of them getting torn apart not by zombies but by regular people who storm the facility because they were stupid enough to broadcast their location on reality television. A redneck with a “Get’er Done” hat (Larry the Cable Guy) and some bald guy with diamond earrings (Howie Mandel) blow themselves up with a grenade. Rival political commentators, an annoying guy who talks about feminization of western society and a leathery blonde (Bill Maher and Ann Coulter) have end-of-the-world viking sex as the facility burns to the ground. A dumb starlet (Paris Hilton) is killed by one of her handlers and her little rat dog escapes on foot. A radio shock jock (Howard Stern) actually survives the war and restarts his show.

Michael Stipe of REM joins the army to fight the zombies

Another war veteran mentions how his brother used to have a bunch of Mel Brooks’ old comedy skits on vinyl record, and how he and his squad acted out the “Boy meets Girl” puppet skit with some human skulls. Mel Brooks is author and narrator Max Brooks’ father.

Queen Elizabeth II, refuses to evacuate England when the island is overrun by zombies. She intends to remain in Buckingham Palace “for the duration,” mirroring the fact that her parents refused to evacuate to Canada during World War II.

Vladimir Putin declares himself Tsar of the Holy Russian Empire, an ultra-orthodox religious state that has armed priests execute political dissidents under the guise of mercy killing people who have been bitten by zombies.

Yang Liwei, the first “taikonaut” (Chinese astronaut) has a space station named after him

While the main conflict is about government responses to the zombie pandemic, we see glimpses of a greater war torn planet.

A major plot line involves a Chinese Civil War which sees the entire communist politburo nuked out of existence by a rebel sub commander, as well as an attempted “scorched space policy” where the government planned to blow up their space station with scuttling charges to cause a cascade of space debris to encircle the Earth and prevent any other countries from launching missions in the future (this is known as Kessler Syndrome in real life, and was featured as the inciting incident of the 2013 movie Gravity). The People’s Republic becomes the United Federation.

Iran and Pakistan destroy each other in nuclear war; everyone thought it would be India and Pakistan, but they had very close diplomatic infrastructure in place to prevent such a catastrophe; Pakistan helped Iran build a nuclear arsenal, but as millions of refugees fled from India through Pakistan to the east, Iran had to blow up some Pakistani bridges to stem the flow of zombies, which led to a border war and eventually total nuclear retaliation.

Floridians flee to Cuba, Wisconsinites flee to Canada, the federal government flees to Hawaii. Everything east of the Rockies is abandoned and ruled by warlords until the government sorts itself out and mounts an expedition to clear the continent of zombies by literally marching an unbroken line of soldiers stretching from Canada to Mexico across the wasteland to the Atlantic.

Israel withdraws from Gaza and the West Bank to become super isolationist, building a wall around the entire country to stop the zombies getting in (they were the first country to respond to the pandemic, and the most successful), but the religious right rebels against the secular left in a civil war that sees Jerusalem ceded to a unified Palestine.

It is an amazing, multifaceted story with so much going on that nobody recognizes. It was written as a response to the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror. It’s about a geopolitical shift, a change in the status quo, a disaster from which the world never recovers; America before 9/11 was a very different place than American after 9/11. Iraq and Afghanistan changed everything, and we’re still feeling their effects to this day; the story uses the zombie apocalypse as the next big international disaster the world must adapt to. World War Z is World War III with zombies, and I think it would do a lot better if it were published today, now that we’ve had several decades to respond to the fall of the Soviet Union and the endless wars in the Middle East and a global pandemic.

#world war z #wwz #max brooks #book #novel

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elbiotipo · 3 years ago

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The Space Shuttle was such bullshit because it was made to make access to space cheaper and so create the conditions for space settlement and industry... but it was expensive as fuck and poorly designed and much of it was because the US Military wanted to use it to launch military sattelites and payloads (I could talk all day about the connections between the military and the space programs of various nations but later) and they interfered in the design by reducing its capabilities for, you know, shuttling things to space, and instead making it more useful for spy sattelites.

Then the US military made its own shittle (oh, yeah, the US has its own secret little military space shuttle, it's called the X-37B and it's built by the same people who build all those airliners) and left NASA with an overbudgted piece of crap that could do nothing but make circles in Low Earth Orbit. And so, they decided to make the International Space Station, which don't get me wrong has done some pretty good stuff and basically saved the space program of both Russia and the US, but it's been orbiting for over 20 years now and it still hasn't done some basic fucking research like "can we make artificial centrifugue gravity" and "can animals reproduce in space" and "can we make efficient radiation shielding for humans" which sound like silly things but are absolutely VITAL to space exploration and

ANYWAYS back to the shittle, it was supposed in fact to be the start of a larger NASA program but Nixon killed NASA's budget... if it maybe it was accompained by all the things it was supposed to have (like Earth-to-Moon ships and space infraestructure) humans could be on their way to Mars right now... but nope. the military needed their satellites...

And probably the worst offense of the shuttle is that the USSR which had some amazing rockets like Energia and plans for moon bases and ambitious space stations for real... but they spent ridiculous amounts of money on their equivalent of the Space Shuttle, Buran, which was even more useless, knecapped their space program (luckily they still got the Soyuz) and probably contributed to the fall of the USSR all things considered. All the money burned on Buran could have been used in literally anything else. I'll bet that the Soviets could have gone to Mars if they wanted with all that money that was spent in a shitty spaceplane that flew two times and then rotted away in an hangar in Kazhastan

and yeah, of course, of the 5 shuttles build, 2 exploded catastrophically killing dozens of people. Probably for the best that the Soviets never flew one with crew.

they looked really cool, though

#cosas mias

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