#ultra fast laser

[boinkingbattlemechs]

Kodiak

The Kodiak is a fast Assault 'Mech designed by Clan Ghost Bear as a second-line counterpart to the Gladiator. Though not taken to the same extreme as other Clan Totem 'Mechs, the Kodiak does epitomize the Ghost Bears' method of warfare, combining an impressive defensive platform with surprising amounts of speed and firepower. Its massive 400-rated XL engine propels the Kodiak to a maximum speed of 64.8 km/h, while seventeen and a half tons of Compound 12A2 gives it impressive armor protection. Though it mounts an incredible amount of firepower, even the use of twenty double heat sinks cannot prevent overheating problems when they are all fired simultaneously, though most MechWarriors learn to use their weapons sparingly and love the 'Mech's ability to deliver a massive knockout punch. The Kodiak incorporates the Garret L20 as its communications system, and uses the RCA Instatrack Mark IX for targeting, however the "claws" mounted on both of its arms are purely aesthetic [EDITORS NOTE: that's some bullshit, they should get Claws for free].

The vast majority of Kodiaks are used by the Ghost Bears, and indeed was exclusive to them in the first years since its introduction. Of those which are found in other toumans, Clan Snow Raven has the largest share, payment for their help in relocating to the Inner Sphere, followed by Clan Goliath Scorpion and Clan Cloud Cobra. Among the Crusader Clans though, only Clan Ice Hellion fields a handful of these 'Mechs. As a interesting note, and proof of the expansion of the Kodiak, at least two of these 'Mechs were found in a Smoke Jaguar unit on planet Asgard, during Operation Bulldog. In later years, Clan Hell's Horses would also become users of the Kodiak, obtaining at least a Trinary of them from the Ghost Bears through various Trials of Possession.

The Kodiak's primary armament consists of devastating short-range weaponry; namely the single Series II Ultra AC/20 occupying its entire right torso, and twin Streak SRM-6s situated in the left torso. These powerful weapons enable the Kodiak to savage any foe, but care must be taken with the limited ammunition at the MechWarrior's disposal. The 'Mech supplements its primary weaponry with eight Series 2a ER medium lasers, four above each hand set into a claw-like array. The ER medium lasers, powered by the fusion power plant, provide hefty firepower long after the ammunition bays have run dry. While the Kodiak is a cruel opponent close up, it is far from defenseless at long-range; mounted directly beneath the engine is a Series 7k ER large laser, allowing it to soften up targets as it advances for the kill.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA Aims to Fly First Quantum Sensor for Gravity Measurements

This mission will pave the way for groundbreaking observations of everything from petroleum reserves to global supplies of fresh water.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, private companies, and academic institutions are developing the first space-based quantum sensor for measuring gravity. Supported by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), this mission will mark a first for quantum sensing and will pave the way for groundbreaking observations of everything from petroleum reserves to global supplies of fresh water.

Earth’s gravitational field is dynamic, changing each day as geologic processes redistribute mass across our planet’s surface. The greater the mass, the greater the gravity.

You wouldn’t notice these subtle changes in gravity as you go about your day, but with sensitive tools called gravity gradiometers, scientists can map the nuances of Earth’s gravitational field and correlate them to subterranean features like aquifers and mineral deposits. These gravity maps are essential for navigation, resource management, and national security.

“We could determine the mass of the Himalayas using atoms,” said Jason Hyon, chief technologist for Earth Science at JPL and director of JPL’s Quantum Space Innovation Center. Hyon and colleagues laid out the concepts behind their Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder (QGGPf) instrument in a recent paper in EPJ Quantum Technology.

Gravity gradiometers track how fast an object in one location falls compared to an object falling just a short distance away. The difference in acceleration between these two free-falling objects, also known as test masses, corresponds to differences in gravitational strength. Test masses fall faster where gravity is stronger.

Cooled to a temperature near absolute zero, the particles in these clouds behave like waves. The quantum gravity gradiometer will measure the difference in acceleration between these matter waves to locate gravitational anomalies.

Using clouds of ultra-cold atoms as test masses is ideal for ensuring that space-based gravity measurements remain accurate over long periods of time, explained Sheng-wey Chiow, an experimental physicist at JPL. “With atoms, I can guarantee that every measurement will be the same. We are less sensitive to environmental effects.”

Using atoms as test masses also makes it possible to measure gravity with a compact instrument aboard a single spacecraft. QGGPf will be around 0.3 cubic yards (0.25 cubic meters) in volume and weigh only about 275 pounds (125 kilograms), smaller and lighter than traditional space-based gravity instruments.

Quantum sensors also have the potential for increased sensitivity. By some estimates, a science-grade quantum gravity gradiometer instrument could be as much as 10 times more sensitive at measuring gravity than classical sensors.

The main purpose of this technology validation mission, scheduled to launch near the end of the decade, will be to test a collection of novel technologies for manipulating interactions between light and matter at the atomic scale.

“No one has tried to fly one of these instruments yet,” said Ben Stray, a postdoctoral researcher at JPL. “We need to fly it so that we can figure out how well it will operate, and that will allow us to not only advance the quantum gravity gradiometer, but also quantum technology in general.”

This technology development project involves significant collaborations between NASA and small businesses. The team at JPL is working with AOSense and Infleqtion to advance the sensor head technology, while NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is working with Vector Atomic to advance the laser optical system.

Ultimately, the innovations achieved during this pathfinder mission could enhance our ability to study Earth, and our ability to understand distant planets and the role gravity plays in shaping the cosmos. “The QGGPf instrument will lead to planetary science applications and fundamental physics applications," said Hyon.

IMAGE: A map of Earth’s gravity. Red indicates areas of the world that exert greater gravitational pull, while blue indicates areas that exert less. A science-grade quantum gravity gradiometer could one day make maps like this with unprecedented accuracy. Credit: NASA

[president-habit]

LOOK, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE? THE COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL ALREADY, WHY NOT HAVE ME IN CHARGE? YOU REALLY GONNA TELL ME I'M A WORSE OPTION THAN THE TWO CLOWN CORPSES RUNNING FOR OFFICE RIGHT NOW?

JUST THINK OF IT THIS WAY; WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF A GUY FORGETTING WHERE HE IS AND SNIFFING KIDS HEADS, 4 YEARS OF A GUY WEARING A SQUIRREL FOR HAIR WHO IS CONVINCED A WALL WILL FIX ANYTHING, OR 8 TO ∞ YEARS OF A STUD LIKE ME?

NOW I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING, "HABIT, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN PUTTING ON OFFER? AREN'T YOU A BAD PERSON? BLAH BLAH BLAH-" FUCK YOU, I CAN BE A GENEROUS CANDIDATE! JUST THINK:

- BIRTH CONTROL AND ABORTION WILL NOT ONLY BE A PROTECTED RIGHT, BUT ENCOURAGED. FUCK THEM KIDS, SEND EM' STRAIGHT TO HELL!

- LEGALIZING NOT ONLY WEED IN EVERY STATE, BUT ALL DRUGS IN EVERY STATE. WHY, YOU ASK? SO THAT AMERICA CAN BE THE FIRST COUNTRY TO HOLD THE CRACKHEAD OLYMPICS. EVERY ATHLETE CAN TAKE AS MANY DRUGS AS THEY WANT, LETS SEE HOW FAST A PERSON CAN REALLY RUN!

- I WILL REMOVE ALL MORAL SAFEGUARDS ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. YOU CAN'T LEARN MORE WITHOUT COMMITTING A COUPLE OF ATROCITIES ALONG THE WAY. I EXPECT TO SEE HORRIBLE RAT-HUMAN HYBRIDS WITHIN 5 YEARS OF MY ELECTION.

- WE WILL NUKE JAPAN EVERY 50 YEARS. TWO BOMBS GAVE US HENTAI, WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, NEED TO KNOW WHAT NEW HORRORS WILL COME AFTER NUKING THEM AGAIN. DOES 3 BOMBS EQUAL REAL GIANT GUNDAMS? LET'S FIND OUT TOGETHER!

I'VE EVEN GOT STRETCH GOALS FOR YOU GUYS!

- A SATELLITE LASER ARRAY CONSTANTLY REFLECTING SUNLIGHT INTO VINNIE'S EYES

- ANNEXING MEXICO AND RENAMING IT SOUTH AMERICA

- ANNEXING SOUTH AMERICA AND RENAMING IT SOUTHER SOUTH AMERICA

- STARTING A COLONY ON THE MOON WHERE THEY WILL BE GASLIT INTO THINKING IT'S 1985 STILL

- PUTTING TRUMP INTO A TRUMAN SHOW SITUATION WHERE HE'S "TOTALLY THE PRESIDENT"

- SOYLENT GREEN

- STARTING MK ULTRA BACK UP AND GIVING THEM DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF HOOKERS AND COCAINE

- SENDING CHILDREN BACK TO THE MINES WHERE THEY BELONG. LOOK, THEY ALREADY LOVE MINECRAFT, IT'S CLEAR THEY MISS HAVING BLACK LUNG AND A LOWER THAN AVERAGE AMOUNT OF LIVING FRIENDS.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Lasers deliver powerful shocking punch in material experiments

Shock experiments are widely used to understand the mechanical and electronic properties of matter under extreme conditions, like planetary impacts by meteorites. However, after the shock occurs, a clear description of the post-shock thermal state and its impacts on material properties is still lacking. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists used ultra-fast X-ray probes to track the thermal response of aluminum and zirconium on shock release from experiments and found the resulting temperatures were much higher than expected. The research is published in the Journal of Applied Physics. A shock wave is a large-amplitude mechanical wave across which pressure, density, particle velocity, temperature and other material properties change abruptly as the wave travels through the material. The shock compression process is thermodynamically irreversible, where a substantial portion of the energy in a shock wave goes into raising the entropy and temperature of the material.

Read more.

[thestitchesarchive]

They’re Not Cybertronian

It had been a joint effort between Arcee and Ultra Magnus to catch that Sweep, yet still a leviathan task- one where all the stars had aligned closely enough to finally subdue one of Scourge’s elusive huntsmen. For the rather clumsy, bumbling things they were, they were still far stronger (and far faster…) than they looked, and their numbers gave them a scary amount of strength. This one simply hadn’t been fast enough to rejoin the group.

It had also been very damaged in the fight, Magnus noted- it was a miracle it was even able to walk, with one of its wings barely hanging on by a few wires and deep lacerations and laser burns crosshatched across cracked blue plating. First Aid had nearly flipped his lid when they dragged it back to HQ- no Cybertronian should have to sit in a cell with such life-threatening wounds. Especially when there was almost no energon seeping out of any of those broken panels- a telltale sign of energon depletion. Despite Rodimus’s insistence, he and Perceptor had managed to make their claim on the Sweep, citing both Cybertronian war convention and repair for the sake of research as their excuse- maybe they could open this specimen up and figure out the secret to the mysterious strength of the Sweeps and those that they answered to.

But repair, as they found out, would not be any easy task- even in this state, the Sweep struggled and fought back against intubation- and only fell into stasis when Perceptor managed to wrangle a cord into it containing the strongest of cybersedatives.

That should’ve been a red flag- but Perceptor had chalked it up to the energon depletion, and curiosity had gotten the better of them already. First Aid took the lead in hooking the Sweep up to an energon drip, as Perceptor started removing pieces of the damaged abdominal plating, placing some of the more intact pieces on trays for further study.

They had no intent on fixing the Sweep’s external armor plates- no point in repairing the enemy more than what was vital- but there was massive internal damage that would need to be fixed if they wanted to see the Sweep survive the night. Once most of the armor plates were stripped, First Aid finally had his first look at the interior wiring of the subject, and his vents stopped in their tracks as he took it all in.

First Aid had been a medic for a long, long time now- he’d repaired hundreds of frames, opened up dozens of his compatriots- and even operated on Decepticon bodies, too. One could say he knew the anatomy of a Cybertronian like the back of his hand. But as he peered into the leaking, exposed innards of the Sweep on the table, for the first time since his Academy years, he couldn’t comprehend any of it.

The discrepancies in anatomy could not be attributed to the manufacturing differences of a Decepticon frame. In fact, the body did not look Cybertronian in origin at all- the thing on the table had no fuel tank, but four energon pumps- its spark casing was two times too big and had too many cables, and in three separate places, he found pistons that seemed to pump into nothing at all. Half of the vital Cybertronian circuits and parts were missing outright, or in wildly erroneous places- and that was all of the parts he understood.

In place of necessary components lay components completely alien to him, all whirring and ticking angrily as he tried to wrap his processor around what he was seeing. He found a leak in one of what might’ve been a main fuel line- instead of leaking pink, it dribbled an iridescent blackish-purple fluid. He tried to collect a sample of it, and the pipette disintegrated in contact with the substance.

Whatever was lying on his table was not Cybertronian, no matter what the frame it wore. It was more of a mockery of the mechanical body- like a freshly-minted medical student had taken access to loose parts and tried to play Primus with the Cybertronian frame. And the worst part was, they had succeeded. Despite all of the inconsistencies and incorrectly-placed parts, the resulting monstrosity was stronger, it was faster, and it was laying on the table before them.

And this was one of the weak ones. One of the hunters that served under Scourge, and under Cyclonus and Galvatron…

“Perceptor?” First Aid asked, venting slowly as he discarded the useless pipette. “What do we know about the manufacturer of the Sweeps?”

Perceptor didn’t answer First Aid at first. He was too focused on another part of the machinery- a deep laceration that had cleaved through the Sweep’s abdominal wiring. When he had looked at it pre-operation, it had been almost as long as his hand- now, as he’d measured it, it had shrunk by almost a fingertip.

He transformed into his alt mode, landing in microscope form on the operating table just next to the damaged area, and zoomed in- just to meet the same horror First Aid had discovered.

At the microscopic level at the very edge of the wound was a thin, blackish-purple lining- slowly creeping forward, filling empty space- and leaving healthy living-metal in its wake. The Sweep was regenerating its wounds just like an organic tumor, creeping forth and spreading its darkness, just like…

First Aid’s query rang in his audials. He transformed back, the energon churning in his fuel tank.

“They were first seen with the world-eater, Unicron.” He said gravely. “Along with the new warlord- Galvatron.”

There was a moment of dreadful silence as the two basked in their revelation, in the presence of a threat that was not even their own kind.

“Oh, Primus. Oh, Primus save us.” First Aid was the first to break the silence, burying his helm in his hands. “What do we tell Rodimus?”

[quiminus]

Jesus christ im gonna be real i completely forgot my own version of the mecha pilot au because i started getting into sonic and in my main fic things are heating and also i travled a little while ago so yeah sorry here is the part 1 its a little short but yeah better late than never am i right

Pov jazz

- sistems online, everything is fully operational swerve - said jazz making his mecha give the thumbs up to the security camera in the space station

{Ok jazz remember this is just to test if the mech is going to survive actual space dont do anything crazy i repeat DO NOT ENGAGE THE ENEMY do you understand?} - said wheeljack in the microphone from the control room in earth

- ok, ok i get it i get it toning the craziness

{opening the hangar, be careful out there} - said perceptor with a stern voice

The massive double reinforced steel doors of the hangar opened and there went jazz he activated the thrusters at the bottom of the mechs feet and went soaring through the vastness of space

{oxigen levels are green pressure is alright, until now everything is as it should be, congratulations jazz you are the first man to fullfil a lot of peoples dreams} - said swerve overjoyed

- thats great, im gonna try out movi- BAM - jazz was interrupted by a gunshot that grazed his- the mechas shoulder

{Jazz what happened?!} Said wheeljack worried

- its the quintessons they, they started attacking - the panic was rising in jazz he had no backup, and it wasnt just one octupus shaped alien it was several

{Jazz get back inside!} - yelled perceptor

- im trying, but there is too many - jazz was dodgin like crazy, it was an onslaught of lasers aiming at him and his only option was run away

He flew, flew as fast as he could and then, he saw something he had never seen before, it was some kind of portal it had the shape of a circle and it was glowing silver

[What the hell is this?since when-] jazz was thinking when more lasers came

Seeing the swarm get bigger and more vicious he flew away in desperation, he got shot in the back the impact big enough to knock him unconscious

Pov swindle

He was taking a coffe break when the news reached him their best pilot jazz, with their very new very expensive space worthy mecha had died in a quintesson ambush alonside the mech

The investors were pissed off their money had seemingly gone to waste and his headache was just starting

He paced around his office his hands in his face, his forehead and hair, he knew the goverment and the suits people already were alergic to caring about the pilots themselves, and that jazz dying would possibly give shockwave more leeway to do ultra mega fucked up things in the name of ensuring things like that didnt happen again, and he needed to stop that, he looked at cellphone in the table debated with himself how much of a scumbag he would be if he did it, and in the end, he sighed in defeat dialed the number and hoped for the best and braced for the worst

Next ->

[quietbluejay]

Transformers: Escalation #6

the final issue of Escalation! Next up we're going to do one of the spotlights i missed whoops, Ultra Magnus. Trust me, it's pretty relevant

this time: the clichemeter starts making an ominous fast clicking noise

so many dramatic pauses

"Kneel my a-"

BOOM goes Hardhead's shot

Megatron smokes

Megatron: you know…i almost felt that

I feel like it would be deeply unfair to make anyone take a shot at every cliched line in this single page

Wheeljack orders Hardhead and Jazz to take Megatron down

Jazz is just like, dude how??

friend: tfw narrative power levels are a thing and the main bad guy can just walk off your attacks because he's a higher tier character then you me: i hate to say it but i guess the whole "point one percenter" actually isn't too bad a way of trying to explain this

incredible image

Prowl tells Hot Rod that he needs to tell Nightbeat to prep the orbital jump

Hot Rod: What? No way, I'm needed here!

Prowl: What's needed...

Prowl: is that facsimile's genetic template. Otherwise, all we've fought for here, everything we've lost...

for the sake of continuity and also my sanity i think we have to ignore that line about Hot Rod outranking Prowl for things to make sense

Prowl tells Wheeljack and Jazz he's coming, and roars off towards the explosions

Prowl: And Prime? Don't be dead. Just...

"Don't be dead"

there's a shot of Optimus' lifeless head

hey whoever chose this typesetting colouring turn on your location i just want to talk

honestly Optimus moving his mind around between different components is wild and i kinda wish we'd seen more of it also first instance of infraspace

"While my consciousness downloads into secondary buffers in my trailer section"

there's a shot of the trailer, open, with a couple computers running inside

"And..."

"I am not alone"

spooky

Mystery figure: Prime

Optimus narrating: and I...

"...know it"

Back in the real world, someone is yelling "Prime?!"

and now back to the circus

"Good, so...get cutting!"

it looks like Ratchet is deploying some kind of cutting tool

geez, just tell him, dude

it cuts to Ironhide's real body which is sitting outside the secret doors

he can't get to a safe distance because his holomatter emitter doesn't have the range

Ratchet: eh, okay

Ratchet: but we're cutting it very fine

01:14

Prowl pulls up while Hardhead is still shooting at Megatron

Prowl points out that Megatron doesn't seem to have any long range weaponry and no way to access his altmode. So...

"...we keep falling back. When we've got some distance, we attack again. Now move!

Prowl: you too Hardhead

Hardhead: yeah yeah

Megatron lets loose with the mouth laser and I cannot take this seriously

Message: Prowl - it's Prime

Prowl: Prime? But I thought-

Optimus quickly explains about Roller

Optimus also has a plan

or at least - if ore-13 is the same thing as ultra-energon, then he knows its weakness (and Megatron doesn't)

Skywarp, getting v. close: there's one. kill it!

he hauls them up and Ratchet's holoavatar grabs them

Ratchet: get yourself out of there!

they vroom vroom away as the timer ticks

ironhide...

"…we're just not stopping him"

Megatron is just standing there

"he's not showing any adverse reaction"

Optimus tells him to hold position...

another meme panel

Optimus: Megatron…

Megatron turns around

"eh?"

omae wa mo...

...shindeiru

meanwhile, due west, Hot Rod is getting shot at

he yells at Nightbeat to get him out of there now

the orbital jump takes effect

meanwhile, Megatron collapses to the ground

he struggles back up to standing

Megatron: -not...

Megatron: ...enough...

Megatron: ...I-

he falls to his knees

still so weird that skywarp is the black plane

Skywarp: I was hoping for a headcount!

Megatron is sparking

Skywarp vops him away

"well there's always next time" says Thundercracker

he then gets voped away as well

immediately, Optimus starts collapsing and Prowl rushes to catch him

Optimus mentions the spark crushing when Prowl asks if he's okay and says he's going to need some CR time

he asks about the facsimile

Prowl: Hot Rod's got him

Prowl taps a thing on his head

Prowl: Hot Rod?

"Prowl, this is Nightbeat."

and now over to the ship

Prowl: Nightbeat? Where's Hot Rod?

Nightbeat: In a CR chamber. He's sustained some pretty severe damage courtesy of Skywarp and Thundercracker.

Prowl: and the facsimile?

talk about a shaggy dog story

Ratchet is watching

he has no clue what to do next

and now two of them have been taken out

and they have no clue who is behind this

it's a panel of Jimmy and Verity lying unconscious on his floor

in Jimmy's hand is the weird card with the M on it

and now time for florida man (and someone who is probably really wishing he was in h/c genre rather than whump)

Hunter: look, what do you want with me?

Cowboy Hat Dude smirks

(oh wait I forgot his name is Dante)

Dante: You? Nothing. You've served your purpose.

Dante: Though I suppose, with the right reconditioning...

and now, over to washington

the guy talking (who is wearing a black suit) comes over to the guy stand on the edge of that pit

black suit:...in numbers!

black suit: what's our status?

other guy (who is wearing a purple shirt and pants): Let's see...Skywatch Indigo reports the Eureka excavation is on schedule, but we don't expect yield for some time

other guy: as for these two, Agent Red...

yikes

back over to Decepticon command in Oregon

Megatron strides from the CR chamber

Megatron: for this ignominy...

Megatron: heads must roll

Megatron: As Prime has seen fit to introduce reinforcements, so shall I. Astrotrain...

Astrotrain is standing there

Megatron: ...get me Sixshot!

Astrotrain looks shocked

Megatron's face is ominously in shadow with only his red eyes glowing

Astrotrain: What?

Astrotrain: You can't be serious! We've never used him at this stage! It's...unthinkable!

Megatron: I did not invite debate. Let there be...

Megatron: ...devastation!

owo

and end issue!

[creative-classpect]

The Land of Traps and Song

Down in the ultra dense cyber city streets, neon lights flicker and burst to the ramping rhythm. Loudspeakers the size of skyscrapers pulse with electrifying music, twisting and turning the geometry of the city around them. Steel and stone bend and shift, revealing the vibrant technicolor dungeons embedded into the various patterns of the world, all controlled by the almost deafening music that pervades the planet.

Welcome to the Land of Traps and Song, LOTAS! Where death or victory is one wrong move away!

This land is a rich multilayered, highly customizable super structure that can be endlessly configured through the sound of music, with different rhythms and styles introducing or subtracting its various elements. While some paths may lead to glory, a single misstep could result in a tumbling cascade of traps, alarms, and dangers beyond imagination. 

The world itself is largely structured as a highly customizable city, where each building has unique floors filled with rewards and hazards. These buildings can expand high into the sky or completely sink beneath the ground depending on a wide variety of factors, but they always maintain a certain set of states and patterns with the other buildings and terrain around them. These configurations are called ‘blocks’ or ‘sets’ by the consorts of the land who need to be keenly aware of the music to map out the hazards of the land.

While LOTAS is certainly an unforgiving place, its design is so finely attuned and precisely wound that it will never give any truly ‘new’ surprises and configurations, given enough time. It’s just that most people don’t live long enough to make a mistake they can afford to make again. 

Something curious has begun to shift in the predictably dangerous land. While consorts have been able to depend on the regions with steady, simple music, the unexplored lands of musical mayhem have begun to ramp up with increasingly intense songs. The introduction of subtle notes consorts can’t even pick up on and newfound complex rhythms that they are not nearly fast enough to follow.

Entire sets are being replaced with pulse pounding mega dungeons, filled to the brim with underling monsters, pits of fire, acid spikes, electricity mazes, and all new combinations. The consorts are being backed into the corner as more and more of their world is becoming smaller and smaller.

It’s up to the Heir of Time to run it back and rougelike their way through the expanding megadungeons and master the all consuming rhythm of the world to set LOTAS to their tempo!

Features

The Dodecagon

The core at the heart of the world, the 12 sided megastructure that influences the entire planet with its music. Nowhere on LOTAS is there somewhere more dangerous. Nowhere in the entire session is there a place with more incredible music.

Each side of the Dodecagon is a different style of music with an incredible level of technical skill that moves and shifts an entire facet of the planet with even the most minute of gestures. Complimentarily, there are death traps the likes of which have never seen the light of day. It is a gauntlet, an onslaught that demands perfect timing. Miniaturized black hole bombs, laser cannon arrays, zigzagging teleportation portals bursting with electricity and only nanometers left for a margin of error. To name the more mild traps, of course. 

Following the music is the only way to cross the surface safely, but that is far easier said than done. Only when the Dodecagon is completed in one single run, a testament to speed, skill, and raw endurance, can the denizen’s lair be found.

The Electric Terminal

While LOTAS is a superstructure of artistic design, it is still a vastly complex machine of a massive scale. Such a place requires an enormous amount of power to keep the thousands of moving parts fully operational.

Enter The Electric Terminal, a powerplant to rule them all. A hyper advanced maze of lightning and twisted metal, the terminal is an especially dangerous place operated by unique sets of underling monsters. It is believed that the denizen created this place, and though it is certainly effective, the consorts are clueless as to how it actually functions.

Some believe the terminal is home to the denizen itself, while others think it houses the scratch construct. A fringe theory is that the power generated is from the unwinding of time itself…

Side quests

Broken Metronome 

Difficulty: 5/10

A few consorts in the settlement called Keynote have gone missing in one of the local dungeon patterns. They had placed set metronomes as a way to easily find where they were through sound, but the metronomes have gone missing. Every hour left in those dungeons could prove fatal and it’s unclear how long the lost consorts can last!

Rewards

12 metronomes, none of which are in synch, each possessing their own unique rhythm. Some sort of energy flux has caused the metronomes to align with a core rhythm from each region of the Dodecagon

A set of expensive exploration gear. Rock climbing equipment, a head lantern, parkour shoes, a mess kit, and a pack of extra delicious trail mix

Tempo Revolution

Difficulty: 10/10

Times are changing on LOTAS. I wish that was a metaphor. The world itself is undergoing a great transition in both space and time, altering and shifting around the set patterns that govern the world. Time itself has begun to move at variable paces, creating localized splits in paradox space. Underlings, imbued with strang time magic, have begun running rampant across the land.

Time itself is threatening to unwind entirely and for reasons largely unknown. What is known is that the Tempo Revolution is caused by a flux of power between the Dodecagon and the Electric Terminal.

While the main quest of the world is still possible to complete with the ongoing Tempo Revolution, it does exist on a fixed time limit before the Tempo Revolution begins. Once that threshold has been crossed, its difficulty skyrockets. If this event has begun, nobody but the Heir of Time should not dare enter LOTAS until it has been completed. To do so otherwise is to surely die.

Reward

Hands of time- Two clock hands, perfectly in sync, from the interior mechanism of the Dodecagon and the Electric Terminal. These two items can only come into existence during this specific time-bending state of the land and, before and after, exist as paradox items akin to juju, becoming completely unbound from the timeline.

One hand manipulates the past, the other manipulates the future.

House starting location

Keynote

While much of LOTAS is a musical death trap, there is one place of peace and sanctuary. That place is Keynote, the clockwork plaza. Keynote acts as a sort of neutral hubzone, situated neatly on the equator and axis of the world and, as such, is perfectly placed to access the various regions of the world while not being in any danger itself.

Keynote is home to dozens of consorts who have carved out a small, but bustling town the Heir of Time's home appears in the direct center of. Some of these consorts operate makeshift item shops, offering all sorts of treasures (and junk) they've discovered in their outings across LOTAS. 

It's peace has made Keystone a bit of an anomaly, as it is the only region where consorts can congregate to share maps and insider knowledge of the surrounding dungeons. This has the added benefit of creating a truly insane cross pollination of music genres. Fusions and blends of music can always be heard, between the constant jam sessions and rhythm arcade games they play

--- --- ---

This post was commissioned by @lepardlover ! If you want to commission me or support my content, you can find me @ https://ko-fi.com/kesscal or over at https://linktr.ee/Skywhale09 !

[boinkingbattlemechs]

Phoenix Hawk IIC

Though in many ways it resembles the combat prowess of the Inner Sphere's Charger, the Phoenix Hawk IIC is a fixture of many second-line Clan Clusters and front-line Successor State regiments during the Word of Blake Jihad.

During the reign of the lackluster Khan Jacob Masters, Clan Steel Viper entered a period of stagnation in all areas, including technological development. In a rare fit of innovation at the time, though one many observers considered oddball at best, the Steel Viper Scientist Caste decided to base a new assault BattleMech on the venerable 45-ton Phoenix Hawk chassis. At 80-tons, the resulting design was almost twice as heavy as the original, though it is severely undergunned for an assault 'Mech due its incredible speed for a 'Mech its size. Following the introduction of the OmniMech by Clan Coyote just three years later however, the Phoenix Hawk IIC largely saw itself relegated to second-line status.

Built around the Type 79 400 XL engine mounted on an Endo Steel skeleton fitted with five Jump Jets, the Phoenix Hawk IIC features as close as possible ground speed and agility to the original Phoenix Hawk as can be reasonably achieved on an 80-ton assault 'Mech, making it an effective fast interdiction unit. Ten and half tons of ferro-fibrous armor provide eighty-one percent of the maximum possible protection at its weight class, while ten Double Heat Sinks are sufficient for the weapons array.

The main armament of the Phoenix Hawk IIC is the paired Ultra Autocannon/10s, each of which has a three-ton ammunition bin it can draw on. The cannons are mounted in twin pods on either side of torso to the rear, a feature allowing technicians easy access to the weapons and reducing maintenance time both at base or in the field. A pair of Machine Guns provide extra firepower that is most useful against unarmored infantry. Despite the Clans' disdain for it, the 'Mech's weaponless arms are almost ideal for physical combat.

The Phoenix Hawk IIC would gain a new vitality following Clan Jade Falcon's ejection of the Steel Vipers from the Inner Sphere in 3061. Seeking to rapidly rebuild their weakened touman, Khan Perigard Zalman approached Clan Diamond Shark offering captured Heavy Laser technology and the plans for the ancient design in return for the production of a new variant for the Steel Viper's second-line clusters. Initially observers were curious why the Sharks dealt so fairly with such a weakened "customer", but the rapid development of even more deadly variations not included in the deal agreed with the Vipers provided some explanation, with production of the visually reworked chassis initiated at both Auxiliary Production Site #5 on Babylon and the rebuilt Trellshire Heavy Industries of Twycross.

By 3078 six variations of the Phoenix Hawk IIC were walking off Trellshire's production lines for the garrison forces of Diamond Shark as well as for sale to both Clan and Inner Sphere buyers. While some among the Clans opposed such sales to Spheroids, the focus on designs like the Phoenix Hawk IIC that are considered mediocre by Clan warrior but are still outstanding by Inner Sphere standards appears to be a conscious choice by the Sharks. Many of the variants also utilize ammunition-hungry weapons, a decision Clan observers wryly note ensures Inner Sphere buyers either make steady munitions purchases or are forced to more frequently buy replacement parts from the accelerated wear caused by using inferior Spheroid ordnance, both ensuring frequent repeat business for the Diamond Sharks.

[retphienix]

Hell yeah!

I shouldn't be alive!

Due to nerves I ran into not one but AT LEAST 2 lasers at the end and my ass was saved by squeaky!

I fell down to like single digits health and here I am!

Now in all honesty, I don't feel like this is a fluke victory since I had MUCH stronger runs prior and just let nerves hit my ass this time (but got carried despite that)- it's earned, complain about it on your own time lmao

But I did it!

Yippee!

Now I can farm a ton of stuff and make a ton of stuff and become ultra powerful (maybe) and then die 10k times to the end-game bosses of Fargo Souls and maybe give up if I become convinced I just can't properly acquire the bullet hell skills necessary for them!

We'll see!

Mostly excited and happy! lol

I will say, as a remix this is one of my favorites in the mod at the moment.

Normal moonlord is kind of... 'spammy' would be how I describe it? He's just constantly throwing projectiles all over the place and when his true eyes are busted out you start getting lasers at inopportune times and most of my victories against him have involved going "Actually, fuck this" and making a giant asphalt road from one end of the world to the other so that I can basically outpace his eyes the entire fight. THIS? It feels like a genuinely enjoyable bullet hell. Not like, Ikaruga levels, but I really- really can't express how much I would not enjoy it if it was lol

Keep it lighter, for my sanity, please :( And this was! This is a good remix :) If the damage was lower I'd be clambering for it to be base game- same with the pillars tbh! The weapon type demands for both moonlord and the pillars are neat to me- definitely a "Please make this expert+ only, thank you" mechanic, but I think if it was softened a bit to just a damage penalty and not immunity it could work as nice flavor :)

Honestly I think almost all of the eternity remixes have been really fun- some of which felt so nice I wish they were slapped in base game as well with the same considerations for nerfing to match base equipment- with only a couple feeling.... "Not Right" for base game and not more fun for my preferences I guess I'd say.

(TANGENT INCOMING)

Like I didn't think bee was any more fun or interesting, it was just different and trying to be harder. I DO NOT think Duke is more fun in large part because I genuinely think the debuff associated with his fight is entirely unfun.

Same with plantera's debuff to be honest but her debuff only hurt me once in all my matches, Duke's debuff is like "Haha! Clipped you with my phase 3 mega speed, you lost all your max health and die in one hit now" that's not fun for a lower experience player like me.

I will say almost all the adjustments to his moveset are actually really nice- the horizontal/vertical sharks that phase in before he dashes at you were 10/10 extra gameplay, his bubble patterns were honestly nice even if they screwed me over a few times. His final phase just wasn't it at all for me, it became "Just dash away a lot and you'll win, this is bullshit"- and the use of his tornados sucked ass in my opinion- I just genuinely don't like them at all.

It felt like a lot of "I'm a boss that moves REALLY fast and demands you keep moving constantly- oh- also I sometimes set up stage hazards that WILL INSTANTLY SHRED YOU just out of sight off screen- good luck :)" didn't like that, feel like they almost needed a built in boss arrow to always denote where they were. Or, you know, to not have hitboxes at all because they added nothing to his fight. That'd be nice.

(TANGENT OVER)

ANYWAYS. Eternity mode bosses fucking rule, like genuinely I turned on eternity mode because I saw that most of the content was locked behind it and I wanted to /try/ to see what I could- I mostly turned it on for the accessories- I wanted to explore the new gear.

But I KEPT it on because the boss remixes RULE in this mod.

Anyways marching on to whatever's next- be that a wall I can't overcome or awesome gear I fall in love with lol

[ellewrites-stuff]

Space Portals

Let’s say, just for kicks, that an interdimensional portal opens in the middle of Times Square.

It pisses a lot of people off, of course. They’re busy people, they’ll tell you, with places to be. They don’t have time for things like interdimensional portals. A lot of people demand that someone get rid of the thing. Pictures of the portal circulate on social media.

Let’s say, the area is cordoned off by authorities (that is, the authorities one usually thinks of when one hears the word ‘authorities’ in relation to things like interdimensional portals, the FBI, the CIA, the Men in Black), who rightfully doubt humanity’s self-preservation instincts. There is a lot of red tape involved, both the bureaucratic kind, and the kind that reads “CAUTION” in bold, black letters. They do not manage to do this before three tourists and someone’s Shih Tzu are absorbed. You read about this on Twitter and see a news broadcast and make a meme and think that it’s a damn shame but at the end of the day its only three people and what can you do.

The portal, of course, vanishes soon afterward, seemingly out of spite. It reappears in Costa Rica and eats another two people. You see this, too, on Twitter or Facebook or Tik-Tok or Snapchat or Instagram. Someone starts a GoFundMe. You don’t donate to it because you don’t have any disposable income. Like an international game of whack-a-mole, the authorities descend once more and attempt to cordon the portal into submission. The portal, which has been looking to spice things up, vomits out a slew of interdimensional space-trash and vanishes again.

Thus begins the game.

It is not long before the space-trash becomes space creatures. A slime monster rampages through Sydney. Prague is assaulted by an army of little green men with laser guns. A group of tourists’ holiday in Havana is interrupted by a cerulean blue sabre toothed tiger

People start getting killed. It isn’t pretty. You don’t know any of them. You don’t mourn.

The portal appears in a country in the Middle East that you don’t know the name of because you never bothered to learn it. An enormous lizard emerges, and hundreds of defenceless civilians die. They are offered a cursory mention in news reports. Some people put up sad posts on their Instagram stories to show how sorry they are. Fundraisers for the victims are created. Not a single one of them reaches their goals.

A general consensus is reached that someone should probably do something.

Of course, its extraordinarily hard to tell where the portal is going to show up next. The portal is not of humanity and accordingly does not obey human rules. Determining what  particular rules it might operate by and how humanity can benefit from the whole thing is a task assigned to a team of eggheads, summoned from across the globe. One of these eggheads is assigned the latter task and takes apart the space trash they send him. You skim a post about him on a blog you sometimes read. The researcher, the blog says, does this so that companies that make phones and cars and, in one case, skin care products can use the space-trash for new innovations. The researcher also does this because he has an irrepressible curiosity about the world around him and an un-squashable love for old, schlocky sci-fi. The blog post does not mention this last part.  

The hard-drive wired into a piece of starship debris is used to make a smart-watch with ultra-fast processing. The little green men’s space suits are reverse engineered and used to make cars. The slime strewn around Sydney is advertised as an exfoliant. You buy the exfoliant because you have disposable income now. It gives you a rash.

People keep dying.

Coordinating some kind of force to combat a portal that is itself a teleporter difficult. There is a brief push to have a specially trained department in every nation’s police force. Training programs are created and rolled out with much excitement and fanfare over the span of several months. There is objections within the police force about this. The military, they argue, should take charge of the situation. The militaries of the world, meanwhile, eye each other suspiciously, waiting for someone to cause an international incident or whip out a nuke. The portal tours the Mediterranean. The Parthenon is irreparably damaged. A tentacled creature is unleashed upon Podgorica. Barcelona is attacked by a flock of birds twice the size of the average person, who have a taste for flesh.

 Civilians independently decide to start taking things into their own hands.

In Sydney there is a girl who calls herself a merc. You don’t know this girl. If you saw her on the street, you probably wouldn’t think that she kills monsters for a living. She is alerted via an intricate network when the portal appears in her designated city, and she drives out in her weather-worn Volkswagen van and shoots down whatever comes out. The girl works part time at Hungry Jacks to makes ends meet because her university got destroyed in the slime creature attack some months earlier. She also has a sword. It’s a pretty sick sword.

In San Francisco, there is  a mathematics professor has been working on a model to predict where the portal will appear next. You don’t know him either, like you don’t know the girl and you don’t know the people who died.  It involves a lot of data, and a lot of sitting at a desk and tapping values into Excel spreadsheets. The mathematics professor was once primed to join the team of eggheads researching the portal before he fucked it all up by voicing his moral objection to the monetization of the portal on a now defunct Twitter account.

The mathematics professor attempts to close the portal with a machine that has been cobbled together with space junk by a man who has not slept in several days. This man is the researcher, who he knows because of a professional rivalry and because they have been sleeping together intermittently for several months. The machine does not work. This will later become a meme that you laugh at while the blue-light of your phone eats away at your sleep schedule.

The eldritch creature that emerges from the portal is stabbed by mercs and the machine is smashed to bits in the resulting staggering around and agonised howling from the creature. The whole thing is captured by a nearby teenager with a Tik-Tok account and a dream of fame. You like this Tik-Tok. The idea of closing the portal is introduced to the public sphere.

The researcher is fired from the egghead team and doesn’t mind it one bit. The President of the United States announces that cutting off the valuable resources that the portal provides would be tantamount to terrorism.

People keep dying. Just in case you thought they weren’t.

Some sectors of the merc network privatise. That is- they charge a modest fee every time their services are required. Often, in the time it takes for the transaction to go through to their PayPal, which is a long time because Wi-Fi is patchy these days, entire city blocks are destroyed. You don’t call mercs and you don’t know who does. More often than not, they just appear.

There is a brief debate over where the portal leads. Some people think the portal doesn’t lead to any one place, but has a variety of source locations, from which things flow into one stream and are deposited out our end. There are a lot of think pieces published and interviews conducted about this until someone points out that this makes Earth sound a lot like an interdimensional dumping ground, and the think pieces and interviews abruptly stop. People begin to talk about the multiverse and quote botched versions of the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics. You retweet some of these because you don’t realise that none of the studies being cited have been peer reviewed.

Another mathematician from the egghead team speaks out. She is both wildly intelligent and the first and only black woman to be awarded the Abel Prize. She claims that the team has developed a set of plans, purely theoretical though they might be, for a means of closing the portal for good. She is subsequently subject to various harassment campaigns on social media. There is talk of taking her Abel Prize away. The egghead team falls into infighting and coups and eventually dissolves. The plans are leaked on Twitter. You don’t know the mathematician’s name. Most people don’t.

Another city block is destroyed. The merc snaps. The next time the portal appears in her designated city, she walks into it without a glance behind her. The portal closes around her, as though it had been waiting. You don’t hear about this. It is only one death, after all, and of a girl that no one knew. Her eulogy is quietly published.

The researcher downloads the plans to his laptop. The laptop acquires various viruses and is reduced to a functionless brick. The plans are redownloaded, with the appropriate digital precautions, and he begins to build them. They are for a machine, much like his own. He feels slightly vindicated.

A blanket ban is induced on circulating the plans. Scientists and experts and people with qualifications and degrees speak out and are ignored in turn. The President of the United States is banned from Twitter after making statements in regards to what he thought of people who wanted to close the portal. The mathematician is doxed. The dox is revealed to be fake, after someone turns up at her house and finds it is instead the address of a nuclear power plant. You make jokes about this with your friends because the situation is inherently ridiculous isn’t it? Isn’t it so fucking funny?

People keep dying.

The professor knocks on the researcher’s door with an apology in his mouth and a computer full of data under his arm. This happens off record in a darkened hallway in a private apartment building, and machine is completed in an equally off record manner. Something that looks like a pterodactyl but isn’t kills ten people in Manila.

The machine is activated when the portal appears in San Francisco, and a luminescent, hot pink flying saucer crashes into the Golden Gate Bridge. The portal closes with a squeaky sound, like a hydrogen pop test. The tail end of the Golden Gate Bridge collapses.

People stop dying. This doesn’t really help the ones who are already dead.

Let’s say the portal closes and stays closed. What do we do? From where will we procure phones and cars and skincare products? What do we do when someone, somewhere, finally tallies up everyone who died? Who do we turn and blame?

Blaming doesn’t do a whole lot of good at this point. They’re in the ground all the same. Someone makes a movie about the portal and you watch it in a cinema. It’s hideously inaccurate and borderline offensive. It makes millions. Then comes the merchandise, the documentaries, the magazines, and interview segments. The list of the dead is soon forgotten. It is messy and inconvenient and makes people feel bad.

Aren’t you grateful, say the authorities and the impeached ex-President and the people who launched harassment campaigns and the people who banned circulation of the plans and the everyday people like you who wanted to help but couldn’t or didn’t, on anniversaries and dedicated days of mourning and whenever it is brought up in conversation. That more people didn’t die? Aren’t you grateful that someone did something, so that you didn’t have to? Aren’t you grateful that you still have your phone and your car and your skin care products?

Aren’t we all so fucking grateful?

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Researchers develop new design and fabrication method to make lightsails for interstellar travel

Since its launch in 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled over 15 billion miles into deep space. That’s a long way — but it’s not even 1% of the distance to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the sun. If humans are going to send ships to the stars, space travel will have to get a lot faster. 

One promising way to pick up that kind of speed is a “lightsail” — a thin, reflective membrane that can be pushed by light much the same way that wind pushes a sailboat. Lightsails have the potential to reduce flight time to nearby stars from several thousand years using current propulsion systems to perhaps just a decade or two. 

Now, a team of researchers from Brown University and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands has developed a new way of designing and fabricating ultra-thin, ultra-reflective membranes for lightsails. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers describe a lightsail membrane that’s 60 millimeters (about 2.4 inches) wide by 60 millimeters long, but with a thickness of just 200 nanometers — a tiny fraction of a human hair. The surface is intricately patterned with billions of nanoscale holes, which help to reduce the material’s weight and increase its reflectivity, giving it more acceleration potential. 

“This work was a joint effort between theorists at Brown University and experimentalists at TU Delft making it possible to design, fabricate and test a highly reflective lightsail with the largest aspect ratio recorded to date,” said Miguel Bessa, an associate professor in Brown’s School of Engineering who co-led the research with Richard Norte, an associate professor at TU Delft. “The experimental breakthrough of Richard’s team proves their fabrication process is scalable to the dimensions needed for interstellar travel and can be done in a cost-effective manner. Simultaneously, my team is very enthusiastic to see the essential role of our latest optimization method guided by machine learning in solving such an interesting and difficult engineering problem.”

The research is a significant step toward realizing goals like those of the Starshot Breakthrough Initiative, founded by entrepreneur Yuri Milner and the late physicist Stephen Hawking. The goal is to use ground-based lasers to power hundreds of meter-scale lightsails carrying microchip-sized spacecraft. This new lightsail design could be scaled up to meter scale fairly easily, the researchers say, and with a manageable price tag. 

For their design, the team used single-layer silicon nitride, a lightweight and high-strength material that’s well suited for lightsail design. The researchers then worked to maximize its reflectivity while minimizing its weight. The reflectivity of the surface determines how much light pressure is created behind the sail, which in turn determines how fast it can accelerate. At the same time, a lighter material requires less force to accelerate, so less mass equals more speed.

The optimization process involved designing a pattern of nanoscale holes — billions of them across the material’s surface with diameters smaller than the wavelength of light. Bessa’s team, including Brown Ph.D. student Shunyu Yin, used a new artificial intelligence method they developed to optimize the shape and placement of the holes for increased reflectivity and decreased weight. 

Once they had an optimized design, a team led by Norte at TU Delft went to work fabricating it in the lab. 

“We have developed a new gas-based etch that allows us to delicately remove the material under the sails, leaving only the sail,” Norte said. “If the sails break, it’s most likely during manufacturing. Once the sails are suspended, they are actually quite robust. These techniques have been uniquely developed at TU Delft.”

Fabricating this design with traditional methods would have been expensive and taken as long as 15 years, the researchers say. But using Norte’s techniques, fabrication took about a day and is thousands of times less expensive. The result is a membrane that the researchers believe has the highest aspect ratio — centimeter-scale length but with nanoscale thickness — of any lightsail design to date. The researchers hope that their methods will not only help humans reach the stars, but also push the limits of nanoscale engineering. 

“The new machine learning and optimization techniques we used here are very general,” Bessa said. “We could use them to create lots of different things for different purposes. This is really just the beginning. We might be on the verge of solving engineering problems that have remained unsolvable up to now.”

The research was funded by the European Union (ERC, EARS, 101042855) and a Limitless Space Institute I2 Grant.

TOP IMAGE: A process for designing ultra-thin membranes with billions of nanoscale holes may one day help small spacecraft reach the stars. Credit Norte lab, TU Delft/Bessa lab, Brown University

LOWER IMAGE: A process for designing ultra-thin membranes with billions of nanoscale holes may one day help small spacecraft reach the stars. Credit Norte lab, TU Delft and Bessa lab, Brown University

[siorca]

Paring prompt for Rodimus & Ultra Magnus if you can

Rodimus struggling to focus, overheating while in his office as Magnus watches him to make sure he gets the work done

Rodimus rubbed as his temple, his optics fritzing and he struggled to hold the stylus straight. “C’mon, Mags, I’m dying here.”

Ultra Magnus sat ramrod straight in the chair opposite Rodimus’ desk. He might have been mistaken for a statue for how laser focused he was on Rodimus, if it wasn’t for how fast he had reacted the last time that Rodimus had tried to make a run for it. He grunted.

Rodimus rubbed more rigorously at his helm, the words on his pad swimming together. “At this rate I’ll over clock.”

“You should have thought of that before you skirted your last three reports.”

Rodimus threw his head back in a dramatic fashion, throwing his stylus to his desk childishly. “I was gonna get them done eventually.”

“Well, I will make sure you finish them now.”

[msn-04iinightingale]

KINSHIP-4 Pt.2 Sound of Thunder

Kinship FOB

The Barghest Company ‘mechs pushed forward in a v formation. Along the side streets and pathways, anti-mech mines had been laid by the retreating CFRI and Silver Wing forces. It only left one clear path into Kinship, and that was now through the advancing Barghest Company ‘mechs and the Silver Wing ‘mechs following them.

The wind whipped snow around the hulking form of Roberta’s superheavy T-Rex battlemech, but didn’t obscure her view of the suburbs and the approaching Word ‘mechs. She was in the lead, her ‘mech half again as tall as an Atlas and twice the weight, she was not by any measure, fast.

But fast didn’t matter when you just kept going. And that was one of two things Roberta was really good at. The other was destroying anything that tried to get in her way. With twin RAC-10’s, ER Large and Medium Lasers, and an Ultra AC-20, Laser AMS, THB Angel ECM Suite, HarJel Repair Systems, and over 35 tons of armor, her “Big Girl Teeth” were amply equipped to do both the former and latter. 

She counted 14 enemy battlemechs, against Barghest Company’s 10 and Silver Wing’s 7. She grunted, a reasonably fair fight. She cycled targets, looking for a suitable, worthy opponent. 

There.

“Target Acquired, Omega” chimed her battlemech’s computer, affectionately dubbed “Betty” by the spheroids. 

Roberta toggled comms to her neighboring unit mates. “This is Major Roberta, I have marked target Omega-1.”

The other Barghest Company ‘mechs committed to this fight sounded off similarly, calling initial targets. 

“Targets called, Commander, permission to open fire?” Bell chimes in.

“Permission granted, all units, fire at will, repeat, fire at will.”

There is the whip crack discharge of Gauss Rifles and the streams of fire and smoke of LRM’s being fired from those ‘mechs that possess them. Hits and impacts are registered across targets, blue readouts shifting to green then yellow as armor is damaged. Roberta smiled to see most shots landed rather than missed.

The Word battlemechs return fire, PPCs and Gauss slugs whipping past or smashing into the advancing wall of metal and myomer that were the heaviest Barghest ‘mechs at the front of the wedge. Two more volleys of long range fire blast out from and at the Barghest Company ‘mechs and the oncoming Word machines, before the ‘mechs enter general weapons range. Then the real fireworks started, lasers and AC rounds crisscrossing missile contrails and PPC arcs in the maelstrom of urban ‘mech combat. 

Then word came back to them. The drone was dead. All it had cost them was another brave pilot. One of their pilots.

The Barghest Company ‘mechs fell upon the Word ‘mechs like rabid dogs. They had lost three of their own, and their blood burned for vengeance. They would take that vengeance in ruined ‘mechs and dead enemies.

Roberta grunts as a trio of Gauss slugs slam into her armor. She had plenty to go before it became a problem. The Omega she was bearing down on had decided to try and fight rather than run. A bold move. A stupid move. She would never go so far as to say these Blakists had honor, but they did have guts. At least sometimes. She was pretty sure she had seen a Preta turn tail and sprint straight into the minefield when it caught sight of her.

Would not be the first time…at least this time I am in my battlemech.

Another trio of slugs slammed into her armor, this time in the right side torso and right arm. She replied with her ER Large Lasers, twin beams reaching out to slice into the Omega’s armor.

“You will have to try better than that savashri!” She laughs over the comms, goading the other pilot. “Come, let us settle this as warriors!”

A beep from her targeting computer indicates that the enemy ‘mech is within optimal range. She toggled both RAC10’s to the same weapon group, glancing at the ammo count as she did. 110 rounds. More than enough. There was no real “aiming” a RAC10 on full auto, so she centered the crosshair on the smaller machine. 

“This is for Major Vance Strider, Major Maria Chaser, and Lt. Elenor Von Strauss!” She snarled,  baring her teeth as she pulls the trigger.

The twin Rotary Auto Cannons sprang to life with an apocalyptic roar, the six barrels of each weapon spinning in their housings as shells thundered out with window shattering force. The wireframe of the Omega before her began to flash and pulse with changing colors as the explosive shells pummeled the ‘mech. Armor was sent flying. Roberta ignored the spiking heat of her cockpit, and the now panicked return fire from the Omega, just as she ignored the shaking of her cockpit and the pounding noise of the cannons. She leaned her ‘mech into the recoil, pushing forward, closing the distance so that more shells hit the same place. All that mattered was keeping the enemy in her crosshairs. Green went to Yellow, then to Orange and Red on the target, armor being torn and ripped away. The ammo count drops quickly.

“Warning, Heat Critical” Betty chimed. Roberta grunts, and lets off the triggers of the RAC10’s before her ‘mech is forced to shutdown. The Omega infront of her had been savaged, her sensors telling her that the armor from the front had been almost completely blasted away, most of its weapons crippled or damaged. Indeed, one of the Gauss rifles explodes dramatically at that moment. The ‘mech still was operational, however, and still had guns, as it fired its remaining LBX back at her, trying to back away and present some more well armored portions of itself towards her. Roberta growls in annoyance, and mild respect. Before she can re-engage, her own wireframe flashes as she takes fire from the left side. With a snarl she toggles the new target, an Archangel, Infernus pattern. The enemy ‘mech fires its PPCs into her left side armor once again, causing a dull throb of pain in the corresponding side. It was easy to ignore.

“Stravag! Very well, I will take both of you on!” she snarled, pivoting and firing her ER Medium Lasers at the Assault ‘mech, scoring armor. She checked her heat gauge, pleased to see it was within acceptable levels. She toggled back the RAC-10’s, and opened fire on her new target with the sound of thunder.

—

Lt. Delila watched through the targeting lens of her Nightstar at the ongoing fight happening in front of her. Ann, Pam, Clara, John and the new guy, Nero were trading fire with the other Omega, and two Seraphs in the streets in front of her. 

She was waiting for “The Shot”. That’s what she called the one, perfect moment where a sniper has their kill shot. It’s what her dad had called it at any rate, when he was sober. That one moment, when everything lines up, and you have your opening.

It wasn’t always easy, or very “glorious” as some of her comrades hailing from the clans would say, but she knew how effective it could be. 

Ann and Pam were dueling the Omega, circling each other as they traded gauss and autocannon fire across their heavy armor. At the same time, Clara, John and Nero were taking on the two Seraphs. She decided that the Omega was the one to take out, and no, not just because her girlfriend was in the process of sandblasting the motherfucker with her autocannons and SRMs. If the Omega was downed, that would free up both Ann, Pam and herself to help with the two Seraphs, and other ‘mechs as needed.

Delila watched, eyes sharp, finger on the trigger of her gauss rifles. Her two allies were coming around again, counterclockwise, blocking her line of sight of the Omega’s juicy bits. There, that niggle at the back of her head, close to the base of her skull.

She brings her ‘mech to a halt, and brings her guns up. She steadies her breathing. 

In. Out.

Pam and Ann move to the side.

In. Out.

The Omega slews into view, firing LB-X canister shot into her friends’ ‘mechs.

In. Out.

The Omega angles itself ever so slightly, to bring its gauss rifles to bear, slowing, slightly, to line up the shot.

In. Out.

The crosshair slides over to the Omega’s cockpit. Only armored glass between the enemy pilot and two gauss slugs.

The Shot.

Delila pulls the trigger.

The twin Gauss Slugs punch through the armored canopy glass of the superheavy, removing the pilot from the present tense and into the past in less time than it takes to blink. The Omega stumbles, as if in shock, before it slumps forward, the ‘mech falling to the ground with a clatter of slack metal limbs.

“Woohoo! Way to go D!” Pam cheered over the comms.

“Good shot, Delila!” Ann adds.

“You know me, I aim to please.” Delila says, smirking at her own joke.

“Oh my god…” Pam groans. “Come on, let’s go help the others.”

“Aff!” Ann adds.

The three Assault ‘mechs turn and move to assist their comrades, of which Clara is grappling with one Seraph and hacking at it with her hatchet, the other trying to take out either John’s Warhammer or Nero’s Warwolf, but the two are coordinating well to keep it busy and unfocused, John using his eidetic memory to call targets to the other pilot, allowing both to focus on disarming the heavier ‘mech. To his credit, Nero is a competent pilot, ducking in and out of cover to land gauss rifle shots where John calls them. 

The three additional assault ‘mechs made short work of the two enemy battlemechs, not that there was much left of Clara’s opponent by the time they got there. The Solaris VII champion had cleaved both arms from the ‘mech, mind, the left arm of her own ‘mech had been badly damaged as well. It’s not immediately clear if it was due to the enemy or that she was using it as a club to batter the other ‘mech in tandem with the punishing chops of her hatchet. It is one such blow that kills the ‘mech, crumpling center torso and crushing reactor with a dull krumping bang. The ruined ‘mech tips over backwards, smashing into a small building and lying still.

“Yay!” Clara cheers over the comms, her ‘mech doing a little happy dance, which is rather strange, given it’s a 100 ton Berserker.

The concentrated gauss, pulse laser, PPC, and LBX autocannon rounds from Ann, Pam and Delila tore the remaining Seraph into pieces, with John’s Warhammer and Nero’s Warwolf adding to the storm of fire as well.

“Whew, got ‘em. Nice work ladies…oh and John.” Nero says, with a nearly audible smile. “This is Captain Bastian, three enemy ‘mechs down, moving to assist further elements.”

“Understood Captain, good work.” Owen replies, calm as ever. According to the tac-map, Owen’s designation is headed towards three enemy mechs on his own.

“Hey, your boss gonna need any help or…” he asks his new lance mates.

“Nah, the boss has got this.” Delila replies.

“...sure hope so.” Nero says in response, turning his ‘mech to fall in with the others of Barghest Company.

—

“Why do you not just die, stravag!?” Bridget shouted at the Seraph she and Bell were engaging. It was proving to be stubbornly resistant to dying. She punched her jumpjets, liftiong her Shrike out of the way of the twin Ultra AC10 shots the mech fired her way. She retaliated, twin Ultra AC5’s raking the enemy ‘mech’s left arm.

The enemy pilot was frustratingly good. She hated to admit it, and never would to anyone out loud, especially not Bell.

Bell pivoted her Mad Cat Mk II out of cover and fired off twin Gauss Slugs into the Seraph’s side, which pivoted and launched a volley of Streak SRM’s at her, she ducked back into cover, only taking a few hits before the rest demolished the facing of the building she ducked behind.

“Major, when it turns to bring its PPC and Ultra AC10 on me, I want you to take it from above.” Bell says calmly to Bridget. 

Bridget huffed a bit. “Aff Colonel.” At least Bell was a capable commander, despite their mutual dislike of one another. Her mech landed, and she prepared herself to jump again.

Bell ducked back out, firing medium lasers and gauss rifles at the Seraph, baiting it, goading the pilot to commit.

The pilot, for all their skill, fell for the basic trap of target priority, and turned to engage Bell fully.

“Now, Major!”

“Aff!” Bridget punched her jump jets bringing her up, up and over the Seraph. She pivoted her mech gracefulling in the air, aiming all weapons downward.

Perfectly executed. As all things should be.

“Die with honor!” She yelled, toggling all guns to fire. Ultra AC5 rounds, ER Large Lasers, and Clan LRMs stabbed down directly into the enemy ‘mech’s cockpit. She landed facing the enemy mech, having turned in mid air, just in time to see it topple over, as dead as its pilot.

Bridget allowed herself a satisfied smirk at the perfection of the maneuver. It almost made up for not facing this enemy in single combat. Almost.

“Good work, Major, now we need to support…” Bell trailed off, her breath catching as she saw her Commander engaging three enemy ‘mechs at once. 

Seeing him in action always did that to her. 

—

Owen pushed Katie forward in long, loping strides through the city streets, curing up snow and asphalt with her powerful legs. He felt the thrum of her reactor, heard the thud of her clawed feet below, saw the fine tuned sensors reaching out and the readiness of her guns. He inhaled the scent of her cockpit.

God it felt good to be with her again out in the field.

He was skilled with just about any mech he was at the controls of. A couple centuries of your own personal Gunslinger program did that to a man, after all. But Katie…Katie was His ‘Mech. Every pilot worth a damn had Their ‘Mech, the one that did better, for some reason or another. The controls were slightly more responsive. The myomer a little more elastic. The seat more comfortable. For whatever reason, it just, fit, like hand in glove. You were at home in the cockpit. It was your’s. And Katie was His ‘Mech.

The Omni Marauder ran, closing with the three enemy mechs. He toggled through the targets; Deva, Grigori, Archangel. He selected the Grigori first, for no other reason than it was closest. Already the three mechs were taking shots at him, confident shots. They outnumbered him three to one, and outweighed his mech by at least that much. What he was doing was suicide.

They didn’t know they were already dead.

He juked Katie left and right, dodging shots and ducking behind buildings just long enough to let missile volleys detonate against them instead. He checked his weapons on second nature. HAG 30, Twin ER PPCs and Twin ER Medium Lasers, all live and ready.

Katie slewed into a street, looking directly down at the Grigori. The enemy mech started to bring its MLM and Streak SRM to bear on the target. Twin ER PPC shots took out the cockpit cleanly before they could center the targeting reticule on Owen.

“Target Destroyed” Katie chimed.

He was already moving, HAG 30 pivoting to track the Deva now. The second here was a gap between the buildings between him and it, he fired. The volley of nickel slugs tore the other machine’s cockpit apart the second it turned to engage him. He didn’t see it fall. He had another target to kill.

“Target Destroyed” Katie chimed.

The Archangel put up more fight, throwing Heavy PPC and Plasma Rifle slugs at him as fast as it could handle the heat. Owen side stepped them, sometimes by just enough to let the heat kiss Katie’s armor. The pilot was panicking, he could tell by the frantic nature of their shots, shooting for where he was rather than where he would be. They triggered their jump jets in an effort to gain some distance and hopefully safety. He triggered his own, the lighter mech gaining altitude faster than the Assault mech. He aimed Katie’s weapon pods, and fired. Twin ER PPC bolts blasted the enemy mech’s cockpit apart midair. The Archangel landed badly, crashing into a building and demolishing it. Owen landed Katie with practiced ease.

“Target Destroyed” Katie chimes.

“That’s my girl.” Owen says, patting the computer console in front of him affectionately. “...now, let’s go see how the rest of them are doing.”

He turned, going back to the fighting and his people. His men and women.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Harmful gases could be detected on-the-spot with new way to generate powerful lasers

Scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a novel method to produce intense and ultra-fast lasers that holds promise for making precise devices that can speed up how quickly trace amounts of pollutants and hazardous gases can be sniffed out. Currently, lasers comprising invisible light in the middle of the infrared range can be used to figure out in minutes what is in the air, whether it is greenhouse gas pollutants, toxic substances, explosives, or gases linked to diseases found in a person's breath. High-powered versions of the mid-infrared laser produced in ultra-fast spurts are critical because they underpin very sensitive devices that can safely detect, from a distance, even tiny amounts of a substance that would otherwise go unnoticed or prove tricky to identify.

Read more.

[achtung-attitude]

CHAPTER 83: Achtung Attitude – Part 1

The wind blows over the Santa Monica Mountains. A young woman with a deep tan kneels at the edge of a certain precipice. Before here, standing firm, a middle-aged man in a dark suit prepares to attack. The distant skyline of Los Angeles illuminates them both.

Illuminated. Light. Shine. Bright. Radiate. Glow. Sparkle.

These words race through Shizuka’s head as she prepares her final move, drawing on the essence of light itself. But there is no more time. She’s already in All-Kill’s, in LONELY BOY’s range. But with LONELY BOY’s power diminished by her enemy’s lack of control, there would be no tremendous final strike, but rather, a slow, torturous end by countless light punches. In desperation, she forces a chuckle out of her throat through the blood that stains her teeth.

“You… You didn’t think… I would really just annoy you to death, did you?” she says, “I mean, I was hoping that might work, but I… I didn’t count on it…”

“You’re still talking,” All-Kill blithely remarks.

“I set… all this up! To bring you here…! To bring you right here. Wanna kn…!” she suddenly gasps, but endures the pain that struck her and desperately continues. “You wanna know why?”

LONELY BOY’s hand curls into a fist. “Why not? Whatever makes you happy, before you die.” The man in black wears a cruel smile.

Summoning all the courage she has, Shizuka stridently points outward, beyond the cliff’s edge and over the mountains, at the glittering LA skyline. “You see that, Mr. Seo? That… That thing you want so badly? The city you want to control? The City of Angels… Well…” She draws her finger back to point straight at All-Kill and declares, “That city… is going to help me kill you tonight!!”

“Hmm?” All-Kill replies. He doesn’t move as Shizuka’s Stand manifests from her being. 

In that instant, dozens of impossible triangles form. All-Kill scrutinizes them as they begin to spin, quickly rotating fast enough to appear as pinwheels. From within them, blinding lights form. At last, Shizuka calls her Stand’s name…

“ACHTUNG BABY!!! ULTRA VIOLET OVERDRIVE!!!”

Like a special effects display at a music festival, compressed beams burst from the spinning triangles, searing the air and filling the place with the scent of ozone. Every last beam aims at All-Kill from every direction. As has happened many times in her adventure, Shizuka’s perception of time slows to a crawl. Slow enough to perceive the lasers converge on her enemy. Within a fraction of a second, they are six inches from his body…

“LONELY BOY.”

… then they stop dead. As soon as the lasers had fired, the Stand of the man in black was already in motion, sweeping the area around its master. With that alone, the beams are stopped in place, not one reaching their mark. The triangles continue to spin, as if attempting to push their respective beams further, but it’s no use. The lasers slam against nothing at all. An invisible, impenetrable fortress of nothing.

“So… Was this it?” All-Kill asks, gesturing to the frozen beams. “Was this your big plan? That first laser in the kitchen didn’t work, so you thought… ‘More should do the trick’?”

Shizuka gasps, releasing a held breath. Blood drips from her nose and ACHTUNG BABY vanishes. The impossible triangles fade with it, but the lights frozen by LONELY BOY remain. All-Kill slips past them and steps closer to stand directly over her.

“This is… just… disappointing,” he exclaims. “So… anticlimactic. Maybe it’s a good thing you refused to join me, if in the end, you turn out to be this pathetic.” Slowly, he reaches down and takes a handful of the young woman’s hair in his left hand and drags her off her knees. She groans, arms limp at her sides, the toes of her shoes scraping the ground. 

“You thought you’d be the one to kill me?” All-Kill sneers, readying LONELY BOY with its fist raised at his side. “It wasn’t you that defeated my family, it was your friends and that treacherous mother of yours. You never achieved anything yourself. You were just lucky…!”

Suddenly, blood spills from his nose. It doesn’t burst out as though he’d been struck, but flows out, as if a dam in his nasal cavity had cracked. It pours over his lips and down his chin. In surprise, he releases Shizuka’s hair to dab at it and inspect his stained fingers.

“What… What the-?”

Something in his stomach churns and instinctively, he brings his hand to his mouth. But there is no stopping it. He wretches, his body twisting away from the cliff before the contents of his stomach come spewing out, soiling his hand and draining into the dirt. Then the pain makes itself known. He stumbles backwards, his eyes glazed and unfocused. His shaking legs collapse and he drops to one knee..

“M-My…! My head…!! It’s k-killing me…! What… What is this?!!” he groans, pinching his temple with his remaining hand. In his feverish, afflicted state, he hears a similar retching sound. Straining, he looks to see Shizuka enduring the same ordeal as him, hunched over and puking her guts up. “You…! What? What have you done? What did you do to me…?! There’s no way ACHTUNG BABY could do this…! All it can do is control light! It can’t…! It can’t do this…!!”

Shizuka rises to her knees shakily. She extends her hand and tries to click her fingers, but fails, her fingers not even strong enough to generate the right friction. “That’s… the really clever part… I couldn’t have done this without you…”

“What’s that…?!”

“Light is in constant motion. Even when it strikes a solid object… it just bounces away in other directions. ACHTUNG BABY doesn’t control light… All it does is manipulate the direction and the form it takes. It can’t stop it. Not outside of unnatural conditions. But you can. You can freeze molecules in place, even light itself… I knew that I couldn’t defeat you with any simple trick… the only way to stop you was to use your own power against you…!!”

“What are you talking about…?!!” All-Kill demands.

“All light…” Shizuka hoarsely says, “All photons carry trace amounts of… radiation…” At this, her enemy’s eyes go wide, his predicament suddenly becoming clear. She swallows and goes on. “Just standing outside on a sunny day for too long… that’s enough to give people melanomas and skin cancer… the light from the Sun travels millions of miles to get here, and its ultraviolet radiation is enough to do that… Do you understand now…? When you blocked my beams, all you did… was place yourself in a radiation field…! I told you, didn’t I?! Everything I did was to get you right here!!!”

All-Kill feels the sickness spread through his body. He groans, coughing up a gout of blood. Strands of hair fall from his scalp. When he rubs his head, his hand comes away with entire clumps of hair in his open palm. “But… But…” he stammers, watching Shizuka suffer in the same way, “Y-You’re killing yourself too… You’ll die along with me!”

The girl smirks. “Everybody else… They’ve made their sacrifices… All for my sake. It’s time I did my part.”

“Tsk!” is the only reply All-Kill can muster aloud, but his mind surges as he tries to figure out what to do now. But beneath his distressed strategizing, one train of thought rules. “Conviction… She’s resolved to die by her own hand, so long as she takes me with her… It’s her conviction that gives her strength… No! I won’t allow that! When this girl dies, she must feel regret! Regret for daring to cross me! I will erase that conviction!!!”

Finally, it came to him, as if popping out of a balloon. So obvious. “Radiation…” he murmurs. “You’re telling me… it’s the radiation in my body that’s killing me…?”

Shizuka doesn’t answer.

All-Kill raises his voice. “Well… Thanks for telling me what to look for… BLACK KEYS!!”

With that command, LONELY BOY opens its palm, BLACK KEYS slotting out. The Stand plunges the KEYS into its master’s side. With a simple turn, Shizuka watches as All-Kill shudders, then takes a deep breath as BLACK KEYS is pulled from his body. “Haaaaaa…” he sighs. “A well-thought out gambit, Shizuka Joestar… But it looks like I remain one step ahead.”

Shizuka’s pupils jitter as All-Kill rises once again to his feet. He poses triumphantly, clearly still suffering, but not in the way he should be.

“Just like you, I had to take a risk myself, but I was able to come out on top… I’ve successfully shut down the radiation in my body. Now it’s nothing but harmless molecules bouncing around my body.”

He steps toward her, standing firm with the pain dulled in his cracked legs. A horrible, desperate madness fills his face. “I could wait now… I could wait for you to succumb and bleed to death from your injuries. Or I could just let the radiation in your body tear you apart. But Shizuka… I’m through it. I’m through with all of this.”

His brief, agonizing trek ends upon reaching her. Once again, he stands over her with terrible menace. Under her breath, her head hanging down, Shizuka whispers, “Looks like… it’s time for my last move…”

“I’m through with you,” All-Kill concludes. LONELY BOY descends, aiming its terrible fist at Shizuka’s skull. A few seconds remain before the end of everything. “IT’S OVER… JOESTAR PRINCESS!!!!!!”

Not a second to waste.

Shizuka moves with blinding, impossible speed and reaches up from her knees to bring her hand before All-Kill’s face. She snaps her fingers.

LONELY BOY’s punch stops halfway. All-Kill grimaces, anticipating the new disturbing illusion to follow. With LONELY BOY on standby, he looks around in search of it, but finds nothing. “What did you do this time…?” he finally asks.

The young Joestar shifts her fingers before the gangster’s face and points to the sky above him. All-Kill looks straight up and sees… a single puffy cloud, like out of a cartoon. Having appeared from nowhere, it hovers above them. LONELY BOY follows its master’s gaze and fixates upon it. “What’s that…?” All-Kill mutters.

Shizuka chuckles weakly. “Hehehe… My trump card.” All-Kill’s face turns down slowly, his face twisted with utter irritation and disappointment. He sighs, “안녕 (Goodbye)... LONELY BOY!!!” Shizuka closes her eyes as LONELY BOY resumes its attack. Assured of his victory, All-Kill looks on with satisfaction.