#or like Interstellar where they go to that water world

[cuprohastes]

visit Strange New Worlds… And do pop-culture references.

“Human Jason, why am I being set down on one of your spinning chairs?” “Girl, we are about to 2000’s makeOVER you.” “You’re going to huh what?” “Trust me on this-“

@sillystringedrat

So there you are, the pinnacle of your world's intelligent species, scion of a culture that survived long enough to have millenia of history and culture, having become advanced enough to join the rare handful of species with interstellar cultures.

And now you're sitting on a chair which is being used as a turntable, having your fur fluffed, brushed, tinted, glittered (Who shows up to a Xenosurvey with glitter?! Humans, that's who.), and ok, you're kind of liking where this is going.

Nobody told you that Humans, apart from being terrifying persistence predators, drinking and eating poison and bioweapons for recreation...

... Three weeks ago, the Human non-fatally defeated a Szilan: 800kg of muscle, scales, spikes, spines, and prehensile teeth, by walking up to it while shaking the condiment from their meal-in-a-box into their water carrier, then flicking it into the predator's face.

Which made it run away. You can't be sure but you think it was crying.

Why a human was carrying something so powerfully toxic in their lunch is a mystery but there has to be a law against bioweapons like this War Saaby.

And the flip side is this human war-beast, this unfathomably terrifying hell creature is all excited because it's trying to get you a good mate.

And all the while, it's making these little cultural jokes, and going off into explanations which need more explanations.

You and the rest of the Survey haven't been bored or burned out ever.

The human, who's there to carry stuff and do Human Related Things just always seems to pop up and abscond with someone for some sort of hijinks, that keep everyone guessing.

You've even started sharing some of the references to your own favorite media, now you don't feel like doing so will cause everyone to look down on you.

And let's face it, you think, looking into the mirror, you'll have a lot to talk about while you're wowing Gitki from Flora with your perfect, glittery fur.

Why you have been handed a menu for s human food place called Lee-Ho Kwuk, is still a mystery.

#humans are weird #humans being weird little guys #haso #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians

[walpu]

while I'm waiting for my second flight this day here's some infodump about my oc, one day I'll write some reader insert based on them god bless

Their name is Andreas but they go as Andy or Rea, rarely using their full name.

They're a Stellaron hunter with a personal vendetta again the IPC and the future Elio promised them is the one where they watch the IPC crumbles by their hands

looks

picrew 1 picrew 2 picrew 3

style

they haven't decided yet if they want to look like a gothic young lord or like a gangster in leather so they just mix it up

music themes

path&type

quantum destruction

lore details

They are from an ocean world, the water is everywhere but it's impossible to drink it due to the salt. Tge climate change also made the climat unusually hot

People on their planet can manipulate their blood flow to a certain degree

Rea's abilities were always extraordinary compared to his kind but after genetic modifications they became truly unique. Also deadly :)

They're a living voodoo doll, as long as they have at least a drop of someone's blood, they can transfer their wounds (even tge fatal ones) to this person (they can also transfer this person's wounds to themselves but they rarely do it)

Genetic modifications weren't consensual btw. They were done by a group of the ipc researchers and then original goal of the project was harmless. But then the lead researcher was changed to Dottore wannabe and the gory nightmare began

The IPC didn't know about it and never checked on the project much. When Rea eventually killed everyone and run away, the truth came up, and the IPC realized how badly they've fucked up. In order to save some face, they've severely downplayed the issue, put all the blame on the research team and publicly apologized for allowing this tragedy to happen

Oh and they've announced Rea dead too. So now catching them is their priority since they're trying so hard to erase their connection to the IPC

Like it's a huuuuge secret that they are directly connected to the ipc

Rea themselves became an interstellar terrorist with only one goal: to creat as many troubles for the ipc as possible. In fact, the first time they met Aven (the first time they remember at least), they've set up his deal.

The only thing keeping them going was hatred, to the point where they've mindset was practically "as long as I can keep destroying things I hate, I'm alive. As long as I'm able to feel hatred, I exist".

At one point Nanook has turned their gaze on them. Later, when they've joined the Stellaron hunters, Elio reveals to them that their destiny was to became an emanator of destruction. They were low-key upset they ended up settling for the Stellaron hunters instead lol

They have very shitty memory. Part of this is a trauma response but there's also the fact that they constantly shoot themselves in the head to transfer the injury to their opponent. They regenerate immediately (an important note, they would only regenerate if their voodoo doll mode is activated) but their brain still gets damaged to a degree.

personality

They're immature in a lot of ways. While certainly smart and creative, they're impatient, whiny, a bit of an airhead. They appear bubbly and playful at the first sight, can easily hide their unstable physiological state. May appear nihilistic since they trust Elio so blindly.

Low-key very attached to the Stellaron hunters but they don't like to admit it. A type of person who would be mistyped as ENTP due to their vibes.

VERY THEATRICAL also prone to escapism.

#rea #hsr #no beta at all im writing this while im walking circles around the airport #hsr oc

[anghraine]

I know Space Middle-earth has been done, but thinking Gondor/Númenor thoughts while also vicariously playing Mass Effect with my best friend suddenly got me thinking about LOTR/the Silm in space. More space fantasy than sci-fi, but still.

I've got a lot of ideas, but wrt Númenor specifically, I think it was another planet, part way between Earth and Space Valinor (I think Tol Eressëa is an asteroid or moon or something). Not particularly close as the starship flies. Humans who had fought in their psionic alien pals' epic interstellar war against Space Morgoth were (if willing) brought from Earth to Númenor, a beautiful garden world.

I don't think humans had the technology for FTL travel at the time or access to whatever they'd call hyperspace lanes in this AU. But they did end up developing FTL space travel later and all sorts of wondrous devices that blurred the line between technology and Space Elf magic.

This goes on over a much longer time than in canon, I think, and they functionally become aliens themselves. Some literally are descendants of Space Elves, but regardless of that, they're becoming increasingly like them, esp in regard to physiology and various psionic abilities.

But where Space Elves are immortal, Númenóreans are not, even if they live much longer than their ancestors did, and in their later years, there's a ton of dubious but well-funded immortality research.

They eventually develop their own interstellar empire. They even rediscover Earth in their travels, and although they don't initially realize what it is and Terrans take them for true aliens at first, both soon recognize their kinship. Unfortunately, the end result is that the Númenóreans fold significant portions of Earth into their empire (also as a consequence, Terran humans spread beyond Earth, though it remains their acknowledged homeworld).

The Space Elves have some ancient holdings on Earth as well, I think, and Space Sauron is expanding his empire to all corners, with various bloody clashes until the Númenóreans apparently conquer Sauron's forces and take him as a prisoner back to Númenor. This goes about as well as in canon, and the end result is that Númenor is transformed into a total water world—I'm thinking rather like the one in Interstellar. (Still deciding if the "lanes" to it are destroyed or if you can go to the planet, but will find nothing except watery death.)

The death of the Númenórean high king, his armada, and destruction of the entire capital planet, its infrastructure, and many of its people nearly destroys the power of the surviving Númenóreans and certainly succeeds in breaking it into multiple states, many of which ultimately fall apart. I think there's some further disaster as Elendil's starship fleet escapes Númenor and it gets split up, with Elendil crash-landing on a Númenórean colony and Isildur and Anárion's part of the fleet ending up near Earth.

All three share incredible diplomatic acumen and are able to unite various factions and peoples behind them into two sprawling "quadrants," the Arnor and Gondor quadrants. The Arnor quadrant is the more remote from the Sol system, though a number of Terran groups have long-since settled there, and it does eventually shatter as a Númenórean quadrant under various pressures (the remaining Númenóreans there become helpful spacefarers, essentially).

The Gondor quadrant has a number of struggles—a disastrous civil war in their capital of Osgiliath that leads to relocating the capital to the Sol system, incursions that lead to relinquishing a major system, the loss of Elendil's dynasty. But they're fundamentally holding together at the time that Sauron's old empire reforms. Now they're struggling to survive and to keep Sauron's empire from total conquest of the known galaxy.

#there's a dangerous sort of borderland of contested systems between gondorian and sauronian space #including what used to be a jewel of gondorian space—ithilien #and all sorts of wild scouting and guerrilla missions are carried out there #i thought of having the minas tirith analogue be a different planet than earth #but idk i like the tower of the sun = the planet of the sun #though it's also the name of their actual capital city #anghraine babbles #legendarium blogging #fic talk #fic talk: space dúnedain #broader than that but that's what got me thinking about it! #ondonórë blogging #númenórë #long post

[timeturner-jay]

Kirby and the Forgotten Lore: My take on KatFL’s relevance to the Kirby timeline.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Kirby and the Forgotten Land, obviously. 

Now that that’s out of the way, let me explain why I’m making this post. The general community census about the Forgotten Land seems to be that this world was where the Ancients originated; that they were the ones who experimented on ID-F86, whose powers then became the basis of the amazing technology we’ve seen from them. That the Ancients were the ones who left this world behind, to then establish themselves as that famous interstellar society. 

To put it nicely, I find this theory incredibly weak and uninspired. Respectfully. 

Here is why: The Ancients, presumably, have their name for a reason. Their culture rose to power a long time ago, then stayed in power for long enough to become as legendary as they are today, and then fell; so long ago that in modern times, they are only referred to as ‘the Ancients’ anymore. For something on such a grand scale, I would expect each of these intervals to have lasted several thousands of years at least. Likely much longer than that though, since many creatures in the Kirby universe seem to have freakishly long lifespans. 

The ‘Forgotten Lands’, on the other hand? They look like they’ve been abandoned for a few decades at most. Just look at this place-

Sure, it's a little dirty and overgrown, but for the most part, everything in this world is still very intact. The buildings are still standing, their furniture is still there. Machines like cars and light switches are still working just fine. The water pipes are still intact. There's even still paper in many locations.

Paper! Which is always the first thing to rot. Any sort of moisture and humidity will do it in very quickly, as I'm sure you're aware. Yet here it is, looking quite alright still.

I feel like even just a few decades are already a far too generous estimate of how long this place has been abandoned; if I really look at this world, it feels like it can't have been left alone for much longer than a few years. But I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a little bit.

But not to the point where I can look at this world and confidently go "yep. These people left here, founded a civilisation somewhere else, then became highly advanced and legendary, then sealed away a god-like entity, then had a civil war and died out, and then became known as 'the Ancients' - all in the span of just a few years! Sounds legit!"... Just. no. Unless time travel was also involved, I absolutely refuse to accept this theory.

So let me offer you an alternative theory: instead of the people of the Forgotten Land inspiring the Ancient tech... What if the Ancient tech inspired them?

I know you want this game to be very important to the lore, and trust me, so do I - but maybe that's just not meant to be. This theory of mine will still tie it into the existing timeline and lore quite neatly - just not in a quite as important way as the origin of the Ancients would've been. But please. There are countless highly-advanced civilisations in the Kirby universe. Not all of them have to be directly related to the Ancients, even if they do use warp technology. Let me remind you that one of the most prominent items at Kirby's disposal is quite literally called the Warp Star - I don't think warp magic/technology is all that uncommon in this universe. It's very unlikely that they're all linked back to the same source.

Anyway, on to my actual theory.

When you enter Lab Discovera and ride the elevator, the tour guide gives you a nice little introduction into the history of ID-F86. How it arrived on the planet. How it was captured, and studied. How, at one point, an incident occured, one that caused our friend Elfilin to separate from the creature's main body.

"However, 30 years after our research began, a 'warp-experiment incident' occured in this facility", the narrator says. Very interesting. She doesn't go into any more detail, but this particular line reminded me of another piece of lore we've seen before. This one, from Planet Robobot.

When she was a child, a somewhat similar incident happened to Susie Haltmann. We don't know any details about this occurrence either, but we know that the Mother Computer - also known as Star Dream, a recreation of the Ancients' clockwork star Nova - was capable of creating wormholes of incredible power. We see this when it summons Galacta Knight in the Meta Knightmare bonus mode.

However, it also mentions that this particular action was specifically prohibited by its previous admin, Mr. Haltmann himself - perhaps because it was this function that caused Susie's loss in the first place?

We don't know exactly how old Susie is - she looks quite young, but she's also not even remotely human. So if we assume that her species ages as slowly as many of the other sentient species in the Kirby universe, these two "warp-experiment incidents" could very well line up with each other. They could very well be one and the same.

In other words, my theory is that the same incident that created Elfilin also brought a young Susie to the Forgotten Land. A young Susie, who, despite her age, had clearly been quite involved in the construction of Star Dream, and had a lot of knowledge to share. She must've been fiercely intelligent even back then.

Susie, who at some point inexplicably reappeared in Haltmann's company. Almost as if the place she had been sent to as a child had finally mastered the same warp technology that removed her from her reality in the first place, allowing her to return.

If you would like further proof, just compare Star Dream and the Eternal Capsule that was later constructed to house ID-F86. They look quite similar - almost as if they were based on the same concepts. Sure, it could be a coincide, but when it comes to HAL, few things ever are.

Yes, the central tube is a little wider, but it has that same flared out top, that same slanted pedestal. It feels like a similar type of technology to me - perhaps inspired by what Susie might have remembered about Star Dream's blueprints. Isn't it strange that this "Eternal Capsule" seems so much more high-tech and advanced than anything else we find in this world? It certainly seems strange to me. Almost as if it wasn't their own technology in the first place!

And then there's the tour guide herself - to me, the way she was speaking about ID-F86 felt eerily similar to the way Susie was talking about Meta Knight after she had modified him against his will and turned him into Mecha Knight, her own little roboticised servant. Both of them spoke with such carefree flippancy, with such utter lack of care or empathy for the sentient, suffering being they were experimenting on - like they were just tools to be used and exploited at will. If this was the culture Susie ultimately grew up in, that would certainly explain why she ended up being Like That.

So then what? 30 years after this warp-experiment incident (I assume they would've kept updating the time on their tour audio guide otherwise, since the Lab seems like quite the important place), the people who once called this planet home mastered their new technology and left the planet for a "land of dreams" - perhaps that was actually Dreamland, as the community was quick to assume, or perhaps it was a more literal dream world, akin to ID-F86's own Forgo Dreams. Perhaps if Susie really was among them, some returned to Haltmann Works alongside her. I can't say.

Regardless of where they actually went though, I don't think it happened very long ago. Everything they left behind is still in remarkably good condition. But whoever they were, I'm quite certain that they weren't the Ancients, or their ancestors. And I'll remain firm on that stance; unless Fecto Elfilis suddenly turns out to have time travel capabilities, I just don't think this lost civilisation is as relevant to the big events of the Kirby timeline as the community hopes it is. Sorry.

#Kirby #Kirby and the Forgotten Land #KatFL #Kirby and the Forgotten Land spoilers #KatFL spoilers #Planet Robobot #Theory #Analysis #the Ancients #Fecto Forgo #Fecto Elfilis #Elfilin #ID-F86 #Star Dream #Susie Haltmann #Meta Knight #Mecha Knight #Kirby lore #Kirby theory #KatFL theory #Yep this is my hot take for the day #Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🤗 #Long post

[annexing-antares]

Interstellar Side Stories

Chapter 1

Planet: Exby-7

Sun (Thane)

The shuttle doors opened, and the harsh air hit my lungs forcing a wheeze out from underneath the mask. I had never really been a fan of gas worlds, particularly this one, which cared less about the people who lived in the city and more about how much money they could make from harvesting the resources from the planet. 

The thunder from an oncoming ion storm shook the now-closing dome to protect the people from rubble and debris. A loud click noise shook the city followed by the muffled noises of the rocks hitting the top of the dome. I took a breath as the air in my lungs began to lighten up a little bit. 

I looked out into the dreary streets and began to walk through the city. While amidst the stars, I had been told that this sector didn’t harbor much attention from the authorities and, the pathway of Order had no interest in coming to this part of the void mostly because they shared the same resources. With those two factors in mind, I decided that this world would be the best to hide out while I try to figure out what this, Stupid watch was meant for and why the old man wanted me to have the thing so badly. 

I checked over my shoulder making sure no one was following me, then pulled out the silver pocketwatch, and pressed the latch. The cover opened exposing the still ticking hands. “I wonder how accurate the time is?” I looked at the watch then began searching for the closet clock and saw the time, which matched perfectly. My eye twitched, “This can’t be worth conquering an entire system for, and if so, perhaps this might give me a chance of at least trying to survive.” 

I clicked the lid shut and shut my eyes, the copious amounts of Hydrogen in the air weren’t helping my senses making the task of trying to get my bearings and coming up with a  decent plan more difficult. I started rubbing my temples and decided the first plan of action would be to find somewhere to stay, which might help clear up my senses then, I could start to take a look at the watch.

The city began to darken as night fell and the lights illuminated the city bathing everything in soft amber tones.  A flickering neon sign caught my eyes as I saw a crowd of people walk out from the rustic-looking building. 

“It’s probably an inn but, knowing my luck, it’s most likely some club or bar of sorts.” I pressed the mask to my face before taking a deep breath and went inside. 

 From the appearance, my guess was that this place acted as an Inn and bar allowing the patrons to sleep off their drunken stupor. I slid into the booth leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling. 

My mind began to drift off and the memories from the past week began to resurface. 

────────✵────────

My ears rang as another explosion went off and my eyes shot toward the skies as another drop ship arrived. Screams and cries rang out.  I heard Gramps shouting from the distance. “Thane! Where are you?”  I began looking around and then, I saw him checking underneath some rubble and rushed over to him. I was painting by the time I got over to him and said, “I’m right here Gramps I’m-” and before I could finish, he grabbed my hand and pushed something wrapped in cloth into my chest. “You need to leave, get out of this place. Don’t worry about me just go!”  He then pointed to a ship still holding my arm and said, “Run, don’t worry about me or this place! Run”.

The words danced in my mind; “Sir”, a voice cut through my train of thought and I looked down. I saw the Tabaxi looking at me slightly annoyed. “Sir,” she said before continuing, “I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past few minutes, are you ready to order?” 

I looked down at the table and tried scanning the menu, my eyes turned silver and I began to to shift the unfamiliar marks and symbols into ones I could more easily recognize. There was no water on this menu so I would have to settle for something fizzy. 

“How about this one?” I pointed to the line on the menu and she looked and gave me the side eye before walking away and muttered something beneath her breath. 

I was about to go back to my thoughts when I heard the doors open and saw a tall and massive individual stalked in, his six wings tucked in tightly and he sat at one of the stools resting his head in his hands. “A seraphim…What in the void is one of those doing here?.” 

The Tabaxi returned with the orange and red liquid and said, “Enjoy your drink”, a subtle snark in her tone and walked off to assist other people in the room. I decided just in case the rest of that angel's unit showed up, to create a plan of escape and began to scan the walls.

#writing #writers on tumblr #orginal story #original character #oc #oc world #oc writing #scifi #orginal work #fiction

[remisummerglow]

Interstellar Holidays (Prologue)

Interstellar travel had been established recently – numerous organizational problems had arisen, chiefly the difference in size between the local and the visiting species. Once the details were all, or mostly, sorted out, and the plans divulged, it turned out that some clients were actually interested. They still wanted to visit the tiny worlds.

Among them was Emma. When the university student heard about the possibility of a holiday in a faraway galaxy, she thought it sounded exotic, extravagant, and unique. In other words, something that would have looked pretty cool on her social media profiles.

Luckily she was wealthy enough to afford these kinds of exclusive trips; or rather her family was.

She was a lover of all things cute, small, and girly, so when she learned that some of the destinations were inhabited by minuscule species, hundreds of times smaller than her own, she immediately squealed and excitedly messaged one of her best friends.

"Are you in?" she asked Zoey, sending her a link to the planet's description.

The girl immediately agreed–she was the artistic type and she was thrilled with the prospect of shooting plenty of photographs of the alien landscapes and visiting the local art museums.

“Visiting the art museums?” Emma wrote back. “Zoe-are you sure you really checked the page I sent you?” she wrote, along with a line of laughing emojis as she hoped that her friend wouldn’t change her mind once she learned the truth.

Zoey loudly sighed once she realized what Emma meant.

“You and your love of tiny things. Why don’t you just get a bottle of shrinking powder and a subservient boyfriend like every other girl?”

“This is clearly different!” wrote Emma. But in the end, it wasn’t hard to convince Zoey. The prospect of checking out a smaller planet’s landscape was possibly even more interesting to her mind.

*

The girls’s ship approached the planet, appearing in the sky uninvited.

Confusion spread across the cities and villages as the inhabitants of that particular region of the planet saw the huge grey spaceship approaching and filling up the sky. It was large enough that its shadow could cover entire cities, and it was only getting closer.

Inside the spaceship two girls were sitting in the lounge, singing along to the lyrics of a popular hit. The trip had been comfortable for them, as the ship was furnished with a kitchen, bedrooms and boarded an experienced staff of cooks, maids, and engineers.

"Look!" Emma excitedly said as she pointed at the travel status screen. “It says we’ve arrived.”

“About time,” said Zoey. “So where do we go first?”

“I’m feeling up for a swim,” Emma said. “Get your bikini ready!”

The girl set the auto-pilot to land near a popular tourist destination.

Once they arrived, at the push of a button, a staircase was lowered over the sea and people from the nearby towns watched in astonishment. A bikini-clad girl in her late teenage years or early twenties began to descend the steps until her flip-flop-clad feet cautiously descended into the water.

The scene was both awe-inspiring and chilling, and it felt like it came out of a science fiction movie, only it obviously wasn’t. The size of the gigantic girl was immediately obvious when her lower body compared to an unfortunate fishing boat sailing nearby, appearing no longer than an inch long and being sank immediately off the water displacement, with the culprit apparently unaware.

“How’s the water?” asked Zoey from the top of the staircase.

“Nice, but kinda shallow!” Emma complained. She was too close to the shoreline, and the water that was hundreds of feet deep to the inhabitants of the planet only reached to her knees.

The girl turned and took some steps towards the ocean, taking pleasure in bathing in the cool, beautiful sea and bending down so she could splash her upper body with fresh water.

Zoey went down the steps, fascinated with what she had seen of the little planet. She had just changed to her bikini and didn’t feel as confident as Emma did about her looks. Although she was undoubtedly pretty, with her blue eyes and dyed red hair, she lacked the explosive curves that her friend proudly paraded, and felt her rather skinny body paled in comparison to Emma’s.

She was feeling somewhat nervous at the thought of thousands of people looking at them, and them easily turning into their center of attention, but at least, she figured, Emma would’ve surely tried to steal the show and take their attention away from her.

“So, what do you think?” Emma asked as her friend joined her in the shallow seawater.

“This is nice!” Zoey said as she looked around with curiosity and awe. Looking at the tiny landscape from her height provided a magnificent vantage point that permitted her to scan the nearby region with a bird's eye view. In the near distance, she had spotted some populated areas and a couple coastal villages, which immediately caught her attention.

“Look,” she pointed. “There’s a town there. Shouldn’t we take a closer look?”

“I was hoping you would say that!” Emma waded in the water, approaching the shore and scaring the beachgoers, who started running away as they saw the mountain-sized girls getting closer.

"Woo! Sorry!" she said as her steps caused waves that washed away an entire beach and sank several minuscule, half an inch-long, boats.

In the not-so-far distance, she saw a mosaic of colorful dots–buildings facing the sea, standing on the hills that the girls were facing as they approached the land.

"Look at this cute village," she giggled. "Its houses are so teeny!"

The people in the village astonishedly stared at the couple of giants coming their way. Those who were closer to the coast ran away as best as they could but for many of them it wasn’t enough – they were caught in the huge waves caused by the girls’s footsteps.

Emma sat in the water with her knees and even that way her height was enough to be able to tower over most of the village. The colorful houses adorned the green cliffs, making for what the girls considered a very pretty sight. On the other hand, anyone who had a view of the maritime scene had a clear view of the giant girl looking in their direction as if spying on an anthill.

The blonde giggled and brought her thumb and index onto one of the buildings, trying to pluck it up from the ground. "Oops." The tiny house crumbled as soon as she increased the pressure to lift it.

"You just destroyed it," pointed out Zoey, saddened at the sight of the pretty reddish building collapsing into a smidge of rubble.

"Sheesh, I tried being gentle."

"They're not plastic toys, you know."

"But, just look,” Emma gesticulated towards the scenery. “Isn't it adorable?"

"Yeah," admitted Zoey, who was standing up straight and casting her enormous shadow over the tiny land. The girl took a photo of the village with her expensive camera. "The architecture is really unique," she observed as she bent down to take a better look, her long red locks brushing off the ground and her necklace bulldozing the walls of an unfortunate building.

“Look!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I think I can see the people!”

“Where?” asked Emma, brimming with curiosity. “Oh!” She had seen them, crowding a very tiny street made of stone, apparently very busy and moving frantically from one end to the other. “They look like bugs!”

“Yeah, but look! They’re running on two legs,” Zoey said. She was feeling silly at her previous nervousness. It was simply impossible to feel nervous once she had seen how small and insignificant the local population was compared to them.

“Are they running away from us?”

Zoey giggled. “They must be really scared.”

Both girls seemed amused. The scene was endearing and yet chilling-the perfect little street, filled with bars, outside tables, little shops, cars, benches… and then the little bug-like people running away and possibly screaming (not that they could hear them) in terror from them, the gigantic aliens looking at them from above.

“I’m offended!” Emma said, as she pouted and crossed her arms. “I’ve never seen people running away from me–it’s usually the other way around!”

She rose to her full height - by standing up, she wanted to make sure everyone could have a good look at her body–her statuesque curves, her plentiful breasts, her wide hips.

“If they’re anything like the guys on our planet, I’m sure they love the way you look,” Zoey giggled. “They’re just prioritizing, you know, their lives.”

Emma shrugged. “I’ll need to find a way to get to them!” Well then, how about you take my picture?”

Zoey nodded. Emma went and posed, adjusting her posture as she rested her hand on the surface of a cliff. As she shifted her weight onto the little hill, however, a landfall began, with several rocks falling down from the cliff and a larger portion of land starting being displaced and beginning its fall.

As a result, the huge blonde lost her balance and tripped into the tiny village, her hands immediately trying to catch something to hold on and ending up inadvertently smashing a luxury hotel and one of the most central town squares.

The blonde had at least managed to avoid hitting her face, but her heavy breasts had collided with the middle of a busy part of town, turning several streets and dozens of buildings from the picturesque village into unrecognizable rubble.

Zoey amusedly took several pictures of Emma’s fall, giggling as she saw her friend regain her balance and brushing off the debris from the village off her hands and tits.

“See?” giggled Zoey. “They were right to be afraid of you.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” cried Emma. Her chest was particularly messy and dozens of little people had remained stuck to her wet tits and bikini top in a disarray of muddy devastation.

“Well, you got what you wanted,” Zoey said, as she splashed some water on Emma to help her clean off the debris off her body. “All the tiny people were drawn to you.”

Full story:

https://books2read.com/u/mKXL8B

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSF844Y5

#giantess #giant women #sizetumblr #size k!nk #macrophilia #giant girl

[dylanobrienisbatman]

Sci-Fi tech choices in Dune (2021) that i LOVED:

The body shields are not impenetrable! fight scenes in sci-fi where the hero is wearing body armour that is shown to have no real weakness lose all their oomph. the choice to show immediately that the shields are susceptible to slow moving threats helped keep the tension throughout the movie!

The way the cutting lazer went all the way through the door! if it’s hot enough and powerful enough to penetrate the steel/stone (?) of the door it’s just gonna keep going! plus it was a nice added threat and gave us that great final shot of Duncan slowly standing with the sword through him.

interstellar travel tube things! sci-fi movies often fail when they try to give explanations for long distance space travel but this is an exception. did they explain how it works? no (aside from that it uses spices). but did it allow for me to not be shocked when the Harkonnens showed up with a fleet overnight? yes! plus, they looked cool!

ALL the ships!!! from the Thopters to the massive transport ships, every ship has a totally unique look and style to it that just makes every scene a thrill. you never know what gorgeous concept you’re gonna get next! it showed a dedication to making a sci-fi world feel larger than life that i thoroughly appreciated.

just ALL of the Fremen Tech!!! the still suits are incredible, and they looked amazing. not too sleek and ‘sexy’ they actually looked like they would be functional and would fit the way a suit like that needed. the form fit is for water collection from the body, but it’s not a cat suit! the thumpers! a sleek design, and a totally simple objective! plus, i liked that they were actually quiet. it’s not for humans, it’s for the sound waves in the sand.

all the tech in this movie works as designed and doesn’t seem to have that extra flourish that is sometimes really frustrating in sci fi works. the tech is shown to wear down, to break, to be susceptible to weak spots and improper usage (having the still suits be checked ahead of time to show there’s an improper way to wear them!), it’s clear that the tech in this movie had a lot of time put in to make it feel lived in and believable within the suspension of disbelief that comes with high concept science fiction. i cannot get enough of this movie, every time i watch i notice and appreciate new parts.

#dune #dune 2021

[commander-krios]

🎶 🎶 for Charley & Thane, 🎶 🎶 for Aurora & Joker, and 🎶 🎶 for Daniel and Kaidan?

I would love to give you some songs! This might be long so I'll have to put it under a read more.

Charley/Thane:

"Awaken Love" by Lacey Sturm

I was searching asking everywhere Looking for the one I love That every dream come true is made of I heard the whisper of your name Just the mention makes me faint I fall and land in your embrace Your fragrance flooding me with life My racing heart so safe with you They can't take me away from you They told me I couldn't find you here But here you are to prove them wrong And I will sing your song of all songs All songs

2. "Open Water" by blessthefall

Love like a storm, like an ocean, endless Love like a fire, like the world is burning Should’ve known better, should’ve known better But you see through all the lines and then Prove I’m not like all of them Should’ve known better, should’ve known better (Ooo, ahh)

If your love is just a dream, don’t wake me up It’s hard enough to face the world alone If your love is just a dream, don’t wake me up It’s hard enough to face the world alone

~~~~

Aurora/Joker:

"Who We Are" by Tristan Prettyman

I don’t have all the answers But right now is all the matters I could never, love another, like I loved you

And we don’t have to understand Fate always has the upper hand And fate choose me and you

I believe in something more All the days that came before Led us right to where we are Right to where we are

It’s all written in the stars We’ve already come so far And we can’t change who we are Ah ah who we are

2. "Falling Like the Stars" by James Arthur

I swear to God, when I come home I'm gonna hold you so close I swear to God, when I come home I'll never let go

Like a river, I flow To the ocean I know You pull me close Guiding me home

And I need you to know that we're Falling so fast We're falling like the stars Falling in love And I'm not scared to say those words With you I'm safe We're falling like the stars We're falling in love

~~~~

Daniel/Kaidan:

"Heaven Knows" by Five for Fighting

Tell me where the good men go Before I wash away Walk me down the old brick road So I can die where I met you Hold me like we're going home Turn your tears to rain Bury me beautiful Heaven knows how I loved you

There's a children's choir in perfect parade Singing like they found the Lord I can't say it they'll let me in But we can dance the way we did High above up the seventh floor

Smile darling don't be sad Stars are going to shine tonight

2. "Interstellar Hearts" by Awake or Sleeping

If you look inside, read between the lines Everything is gradual When you see the signs, the comets all collide Everything is magical

We're interstellar hearts whenever we're together Can't resist your gravity It took a million miles to find you, stars to fly through Spark of perfect chemistry This is our future, we're meant to find it We will go further 'cause we're Just interstellar hearts in cosmic time We shine

#aceghosts #otp song meme #charley x thane #shrios #otp: meet me across the sea #aurora x joker #shoker #otp: i'll follow you into hell #daniel x kaidan #mshenko

[lunarsands]

Callback to this post after finishing my rewatch of Sausage’s S1 and I have Many Thoughts.

(Edit: added point #5 because I forgot something!)

1. Never mind the last portal to light, what if one of the ruined portals leads in from Sanctuary? Imagine S2 Sausage stumbles in and has no idea what is happening, and maybe at that time all of the various Bubbles have returned to their home realities? Maybe he explores the other lit portals in an attempt to get home (because maybe the one he came through is still ruined on that side?) BUT he finds each world in flames because the Evil King/Warlock!Sausage (see #3 for a theory) also came through and ransacked each one for any magic he could find? But some of it somehow starts to look familiar to S2 Sausage... (Side note: in each world a Bubbles leads him to the portals that go back to the Council space)

Readmore for a few S1 and S2 spoilers:

And if that final portal leads to Afterlife, then maybe it automatically takes him to where Angel!Sausage is sleeping, and then Pearl has to send S2 Sausage back to S2 Empires and he’s very confused as to why a version of himself is napping in a goddess’ house.

2. Theory that S2 Sausage using too much Sanctuary magic equates to S1 Sausage overusing reality hopping magic (never did get that castle interior, huh), which causes some of this tangled reality mess 

3. Backing up to the last episode of S1: What actually happened when Warlock!Sausage consumed the Xornoth crystal?? That laughter did not sound like Sausage, so could this have been an alternate Xornoth, since the main timeline version of Xornoth died with Scott? And so:

Could we have an alternate Xornoth inhabiting the body of Warlock!Sausage who in turn could have some of Sausage’s reality hopping powers but hadn’t been able to unlock them, but this Xornoth can, and this is The Evil King in S2? And with some of Warlock!Sausage still in there, he’s greedy for magic power and set on hunting down this guy who resembles the S1 Sausage he once knew (and could actually be that Sausage).

3a. We also have this statement from Sausage in ep 46:  "I can literally control space and time, go to alternate realities, and warp dimensional beings together to form one thing."

Hey, uh...what was that last part? Excuse me?? O_o Alternate Xornoth gets access to that, too?

3b. The whole speech Warlock!Sausage gave in ep 45 has S2 Evil King vibes imo (wanting unlimited power, Mythland covered in ashes).

4. Speaking of that speech, uh, whoops, Cynthrey and I accidentally copied that “unable to die” part in our initial post full of S2 theories with S2 Sausage actually being an immortal S1 Sausage, and my little fic blurb that I’m still not sure what to follow up with. XD (we’ve been way off on the other theories so I’m not going to link it but I dunno, this one might still hold some water)

Now all we’re missing is Sausage actually meeting himself... Although, re: point 3a, what happens if all these disparate versions of Sausage get “warped” back into one again? Hmmmm...

5. EDIT: I FORGOT THIS QUOTE:   "Actually, I'm trying to do another road connecting multiple realities together through like an interstellar highway but that's coming up later on. I just need a magical staff for that one."

If the Staff of Mythland shows up in S2 I STG.

#empires smp #empires smp s1 #empires smp s2 #MythicalSausage #empires theories #empires smp spoilers #just in case #empiressmp #mythical sausage #edit forgot a note

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: The Stars Undying (Empire Without End #1) Author: Emery Robin Genre/s: science fiction Content/Trigger Warning/s: blood, gore, violence Summary (from publisher’s website): Princess Altagracia has lost everything. After a bloody civil war, her twin sister has claimed both the crown of their planet, Szayet, and the Pearl of its prophecy: a computer that contains the immortal soul of Szayet’s god. So when the interstellar Empire of Ceiao turns its conquering eye toward Szayet, Gracia sees an opportunity. To regain her planet, Gracia places herself in the hands of the empire and its dangerous commander, Matheus Ceirran. But winning over Matheus, to say nothing of his mercurial and compelling captain Anita, is no easy feat. And in trying to secure her planet’s sovereignty and future, Gracia will find herself torn between Matheus’s ambitions, Anita’s unpredictable desires, and the demands of the Pearl that whispers in her ear. For Szayet’s sake and her own, she will need to become more than a princess with a silver tongue. She will have to become a queen as history has never seen before. Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-stars-undying-emery-robin/18255504 Spoiler-Free Review: My interest in Cleopatra is generally peripheral to my interest in all things Ancient Egyptian - an interest that waned when I learned about more ancient queens like Hatshepsut. Still, Cleopatra (the VII, as there were other Cleopatras before her) is probably the most famous ancient Egyptian queen, especially when you’re talking about mainstream pop culture. Which means, of course, I had to check this book out, not least because it promised to be retelling of the story of Cleopatra, Caesar, and Antony but set against a space opera backdrop. And it certainly delivered on that part - but not quite in the way I hoped. See, I think this novel hews just a little TOO close to history for my liking. It TRIES to get away with it, but when your space Caesar is named “Ceirran” and your space Antony is named “Anita” or “Ana” (depends) and your space Cleopatra has the epithet “Patramata” and your space Octavian is Otávio, well-- You see what I mean? And it’s not just the names: it’s the worldbuilding too. Szayet does not sound like Egypt, but it sure is described as a kind of inverse Egypt where there is too much water instead of too little. Ceiao does not sound like Rome, but it certainly is described that way, with all the names switched out for Spanish- and Portuguese-esque sounding names and terms. Madinabia sounds adjacent to Britannia, and the description of the people there certainly aligns with the Britons the Romans encountered when Caesar (Ceirran?) went a-conquering. And all this before pointing out that, as a retelling, the beats of the plot very, VERY closely align with actual history. What this means is that it was easy to get pulled out of immersion while I was reading this novel, because there would be moments where I would recognize this character or that location and align it with the historical equivalent. I couldn’t really sink into this world the author was weaving (and it really is quite a fantastic world!) because I’d read about a character and suddenly think “Oh hey, this is Cicero” and I’d be pulled out of the story yet again. The recognition’s supposed to be part of the fun of reading these sorts of stories, but it’s fun only insofar as it lets me stay IN the world of the story and not constantly pulling me out of it. Makes me wonder if this wouldn’t have been better as a straight-up historical novel, but then maybe it wouldn’t have stood out from the herd of other historical novels set in the same time period and around the same characters? That being said, this story’s got its good qualities too. The prose is really very lovely, and really is what kept me reading to the end. There’s also a lot of clever worldbuilding going on in there too, despite it hewing too closely to actual history as I said earlier, and I rather wish the author had done something else with the ideas and not used them in this retelling. The themes are also intriguing: questions of power and empire are of course very prominent, but there are also questions around immortality and godhood that got brought up. All those themes were touched upon, but further exploration will have to come in the second book. So overall, this wasn’t an entirely bad read! I just think that it could’ve been better if it hadn’t stuck as close as it did to the source material, as it were. May get the second book when it comes out, just to see if this’ll end the way I think it will based on how the actual history went. Rating: two large pearls and one small pearl (two and a half stars)

#book review #book reviews #science fiction #scifi #sff #the stars undying #empire without end series #emery robin #books

[tripcabinet]

A Celestial Soirée: Unveiling the Extraterrestrial Wonders of ARK 11 Singapore

Introduction:

Join us for a trip into the highly advanced nightlife of ARK 11 Nightclub, Singapore’s new bold city attraction. Located at Orchard Central, It’s going to offer us a whole new world of a mind-blowing night out; where up-to-the-minute design and technology plus beats that move us fuse to give us a unique experience.

The Celestial Gateway:

One ARK 11 boosting stripe might mean another ARK 11 reviving branch road because you must say goodbye to the old entryway. Instead, prepare yourself for the entrancing corridor of a spaceship, a passageway into a reality that extends beyond the bounds of imagination. Designed by the scientists of the famous Universal Studios Singapore, this walkway will lead you to an interstellar experience that is waiting only a few steps ahead.

A Visual Odyssey:

Astrontica Red Knight 11 (ARK 11) is not only a bar, but it also is a visually distinct collection of objects that will make you feel like you are in space. The crew lives in a spacecraft, which is also called a vessel, having lived in a vessel created so carefully that it gives a real sense of outer space. They train to dance on a holographic dance floor, communicate in Esperanto, and eat space food. They perform in shows to the crowd at the mission control and develop something resembling real-life relationships.

Sensory Delights:

Be ready to be impressed as state-of-the-art technology completely engulfs you within the club’s sci-fi ambiance. Under the canopy of sparkling stars or with the music pulse running through you — shock live works effects and get the involvement of your senses — ARK 11 greets you with a thrilling experience!

AI-Powered Mixology:

A.I. smart bar is ARK 11’s robotic place where a play with cutting-edge innovations and mixing skills is done. Disclose to the algorithm the kind of climate or flavors that you want, then be enchanted as it whips up a customized cocktail that defies the law of physics.

Beyond the Dance Floor:

ARK 11 goes beyond the regular nightly club with multi-event programming including residencies of top DJs. These special thematic events transport you into otherworldly universes and appearances by celebrity visitors. The club is popular among both experienced clubbers and newcomers, leaving no doubt as to the wonderful evening that awaits all.

Culinary Constellations:

The dance floor is where our artists place a particular emphasis, along with our commitment to funding earthly necessities. Enrich your journey through our [station name] and choose from the mouth-watering array of tasty snacks and delicacies that will leave you energized for your walk in space.

Dress Code: Space Chic

Don’t be strict with the ball gowns and tuxedos; street fashion is the new emphasis in ARK 11. Picture the art, the venues, the bright neon lights, and the metallic accents. Imagine how this looks futuristic. Instead of plain dressing, choose the theme and make your costume play a part in the heavenly show. From learners of varying levels to individuals with specific learning disabilities, this smart educational platform has the potential to provide personalized learning experiences and improve academic outcomes.

Ready for Liftoff?

Plunge into the regularity, and chase the future — a night of alien nightlife inside ARK 11. Herd your fellow space explorers, and put on your space-related outfit. Hence, be advised to purchase tickets in advance for such a once-in-a-lifetime show.

Conclusion: Blast Off with Trip Cabinet’s Singapore Tour Package from Bangalore

For those seeking a night beyond the ordinary, ARK 11 promises an unforgettable experience. Elevate your interstellar revelry by securing your tickets in advance. And for a seamless journey to this cosmic haven, explore the exclusive Singapore tour packages from Bangalore offered by Trip Cabinet. Embark on a celestial soirée that transcends the realms of nightlife, leaving you with memories of an extraordinary adventure.

#ARK11Experience #CelestialSoiree #SpaceChicNights #FuturisticClubbing #SingaporeNightlife

[spacenutspod]

We know of Mars as the Red Planet, for its surface and atmosphere is caked in endless swirling dust of rusted iron, the rusting action provided by the always-eager oxygen. But this was not always so. As attested by our robotic emissaries that we have sent to that planet for over half a century, Mars was once a vibrant (if not verdant) world. We see the evidence for water everywhere we look: ancient flood plains, seabeds, alluvial fans, all of it. If I were to give you two pictures, one from the surface of Mars and one from one of Earth’s deserts, you could not tell the difference. While Mars may not have had as rich an abundance of liquid water as the Earth, we do know with confidence that the world once hosted vast oceans, long, meandering rivers, and a weekly forecast featuring rainy, overcast, dreary days. We do not yet know if the right chemicals found the right combinations at the right times to begin climbing the ladder to life on that planet, but we do know that if you could transport yourself back billions of years, to the early days of our solar system, you would find two Earth-like planets orbiting within the habitable zone of our star. But Mars was born with a flaw, a crippling birth defect that fated it to snuff out any hope for life on its surface. The planet Mars, though it gleams with red anger in our nighttime skies, is small. By mass it’s roughly only 11% that of the Earth. And that small mass means that its core cooled off much faster than it should have. All worlds are warm. Some of the heat comes from the decay of radioactive elements, elements mixed within the primordial gas cloud that condensed long ago to form our solar system. But they also retain heat from the process of formation itself. Every planet that we see today is the end result of collapsing a large, diffuse cloud of gas and dust into a relatively compact volume. That collapse causes friction, and that friction generates heat. That heat is trapped inside the body of a planet as it forms. The only way for that heat to escape is through the planet emitting radiation into the vacuum of space. As methods of heat transport go, radiation is by far the most inefficient (for a gruesome but tangible example, if we were to toss your body into the vacuum of space far away from the Sun, it would take several hours for you to freeze). As the planets emit infrared radiation, they slowly release the heat from within and cool off. The Earth still has plenty of heat to spare, for two reasons. One, our planet is larger than Mars, and so it acquired more heat during its formation. Second, the heat of our planet is contained within the volume of its body, but the heat can only radiate from its surface. If you double the size of a planet, its surface area quadruples, but its volume becomes eight times larger. Larger planets release heat more slowly than smaller ones. In other words, we are much more inefficient than Mars when it comes to removing our heat. Our heat keeps the core of our planet molten, and it’s there, buried thousands of miles beneath the surface, where the complex twisting of charged elements like iron, worming against each other in a great churning fire, generate our planet’s magnetic field. That magnetic field deflects the onslaught of the solar wind, the ever-present rain of charged subatomic particles streaming from our Sun, keeping our atmosphere safe. Without that protective magnetic field, we would lose our air like dandelion seeds in the breeze. And this was Mars’ flaw. Born too small, within a billion years its core cooled and solidified, its magnetic field becoming feeble. Without that protection, Mars lost its atmosphere. Without that atmospheric pressure, the water on its surface boiled and evaporated into gas, where it too got caught up in the solar wind and blown out of the solar system. That water has now joined its brethren in the interstellar wastes, never to be seen again. And with that, Mars died, along with any hope of life on that world. The post Why Mars Died appeared first on Universe Today.

#space #astronomy #news #science

[someonestole15]

Chemical imbalance

Interstellar.

Feels like being torn apart atom by atom, to a steady deceleration as the drive spools back down and the cloud sends us through to the system beyond. A moment to recalibrate to the artificial gravity, a sinking feeling in the stomach, I guided the ship away from the entry point and towards the nearby moon.

Should hide our signals for now, the purple nebula fought with the star for light we drifted across the dark side of the moon. Breathe, you are in clear waters for now, I lifted my arm away from the throttle and watched it shiver from the adrenaline, slowly recovering back to its steady self. Back to the matter at hand, Valkyrie caught a message coming from an Empire proxy satellite, hidden underneath several layers of encryption. Running it through the ships computer and encryption software should only take a moment.

>>ICE Breaker active… Checking for updates… Check cancelled by user… Proceeding… >>Processing… >>Decryption complete. Displaying in text: She will guide you, coordinates attached.

“Seems to be an Empire site outside the city itself, ETA 30 minutes.”

“You mind flying?”

“Not at all.”

Need a moment to think through things and come up with a plan if things go sideways. Through the cockpit and into the cargo bay, I took a seat opposite the armory and closed my eyes as I put out a query for anything related to Taika. The coordinates placed us closer to the edge of the city in an industrial sector, mainly focused on drilling and purifying water deep in the planets crust, the colony itself was now a tourist attraction in the middle of the capital, many tall buildings around it mainly focused on business and luxury. Zen Peaks kept appearing on the data files, a district name perhaps.

The industrial complex owned by Puretech Logistics, the area sees routine android maintenance crews; I guess Nikolas did his research as well. Can never have too many allies in a world like this, chaotic and on a brink of collapse…

Nothing that cannot be fixed with hard work and soldering iron… relax, with the civilian population and independent nature of the colony and the now surrounding city means Black Ocean cannot simply roll in and declare martial law to turn the place upside down.

Keep a low profile, certainly an item on the list, I looked through the weapons in the armory and grabbed the Phoenix from the racks. Still warm, unfortunately keeping a low profile relies on silence almost as much as keeping a finger off the trigger. Glitch across my vision, I fell to the floor as my comms spiked up with a faint voice that seemed almost too familiar.

Since when has that been an issue, you have asked for help many a time but now you refuse to even carry us… Do you even remember why we are here?

I do… and I might have an idea to continue keeping you along.

Once again the dark with the floor coated in water, hallucinations or a messed up dream, hard to say.

Oh please, you know where you are, we gave you our promise and you did the same for us. If the current form of the tool is unsuited, then change it. You have repaired the Phoenix before, into a weapon capable of tearing through armor and flesh alike, what is stopping you from doing so now? Tell us what you need.

Quiet.

Understandable, the path to that might be difficult in normal conditions but these are not ones… Modify, adapt and let us loose again, it is what you owe us.

Flashes of a green flame, a lighter barrel on a darkened frame, and the fangs of a venomous snake carved across the barrel… I see now, I understand what you are saying.

Wake up to Valkyrie telling me we were closing in on the planet. Something heavy in my hand that was not there before, the Phoenix had changed. Spares in my other hand, the old barrel replaced with a heavy helical silencer, a match trigger and a modernized hammer to avoid being caught on clothing when drawn, all of it marked with deep, almost black emerald tint.

Venom. Let it run like rivers. Still balanced but lighter, I thought to myself as I placed the revolver into my holster. Phoenix no more, a new name appeared on my HUD as I headed into the cockpit. Taipan, hide in the grass and wait to strike, I took a seat behind Valkyrie and got myself connected to the ships systems again.

“We’re on approach. Nothing on scope so far other than standard cargo haulers, they have given us some weird looks but nothing hostile.” Above the taiga, sparse forests and hills rolling beyond vision, the terraforming efforts had certainly taken good hold of the terrain.

“Good. I got comms. How are the new engines?”

“Rapid for sure, but they need to be calibrated to the systems once we land, the heat is constantly in the red on the digital dials but the analog shows them a bit in the yellow.”

“We’ll have time to do that once we settle in. Speak of the devil, comms incoming.”

“Corvus, this is Empire flight control. You have been marked down by the Empire flight control due to the hazardous cargo; please follow the designated helicopter to the quarantine site.”

With the message processed, Valkyrie guided us behind the Empire helicopter for a while outside the city until we reached a depot fenced off and far from any population. Guided down by a hologram onto a landing pad, the ship settled down onto its suspension and the engines slowly descended from the howl to a faint whine of the cooling fans, Watching from the cockpit, a small squad of workers in hazmat gear got to work in securing the ship to the landing pad.

“Ship secure, ready to move underground. Crew, please prepare for decontamination.”

“Crew is ready. Standing by.” Confirmation over the radio as the workers got clear and the ship started lowering to the hangar beneath. Underground with red warnings flashing all around, the alarms were silenced as soon as the hangar ceiling sealed shut above us.

“Site secure and comms encrypted. Welcome to Novis, please follow instructions and we will get you on your way. Disembark and prepare for decontamination.”

“Weaponry?” Valkyrie asked before getting out of her seat.

“Bring a sidearm, can’t be too careful.” She nodded to confirm and got up, we then headed to the back of the ship where she grabbed a small caliber pistol. Mostly gray with a few red highlights like the trigger and magazine release, she stashed it underneath her coat while I stuck with the Taipan.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

Pull on the handle, the hydraulic locks released the door, the filtered air felt sterile and the bright lights made it hard to see for a moment.

“Crew disembarking, stand by.” Scanner in the green, the worker marked the results down on his tablet and instructed us to follow him. Yellow line across the hangar floor, we were taken to a room filled with lockers and cabinets. A man in an orange hazmat suit greeted us.

“Captain Barnett, welcome to Novis hazardous material storage and disposal site, we were given an assignment to aid you from high up in the chain.” The man said, offering me his gloved hand. Dark hair and well-trimmed beard underneath the hazmat gear, he shifted around and seemed capable from what I could tell.

“Friends in high places, we appreciate the help. Phoenix, this is Valkyrie.”

“So I’ve heard. You’re lucky we have little traffic today; otherwise, we might have had to get you on the cleaning crew.  Follow me, I’ll show you to your quarters.”

“What is the plan now?” Valkyrie asked once we had entered an elevator heading towards the surface.

“Your arrival has been marked down as the usual hazardous material shipment we receive almost daily and all the official documents are in order, shipping you out right away might catch some eyes since we just received this shift of workers. When the next one arrives next week and these guys head home, you’ll join them. The truck will take you to the Empire base nearby where you can proceed how you see fit.”

“So we’re not officially here.”

“Correct, we can house your ship for a few weeks while you get settled in.”

“Good.”

Outside in the fresh air, the air felt cold as a jeep pulled up in front of the building and a pair of guards climbed out, greeting the captain and us.

“Good, you are on time. These two will take you to your quarters.”

“Yes sir.” The guards responded in unison and opened up the rear doors of the jeep.

“Right then, any questions?”

“Can we grab things from the ship?”

“It is for now under quarantine to keep it under wraps. We will let you know when we have moved it to the hangar where you can access it.”

“Any curfews or limits to where we can go?”

“This is a secure site but you are authorized to move around the outdoor areas. There will be more information in your quarters for the protocols.”

“Understood, let’s hit the road.”

“I will be in touch once your ship is in the hangar.”

In the car and on the road, a short drive took us from the containment hangar to the barracks building near the edge of the compound. Two story building that had clearly seen better days, the guards guided us inside and to a room on the first floor that seemed cozy enough for the time being. Everything else seemed standard, but there was a laptop sitting on the desk that didn’t seemed out of place.

“Chief Intelligence Officer sent that over, secure line to him and only him.”

“Signature locking means should only open to you.”

“Cheers.”

“We’ll leave you to it. Captain will be in touch later and the laptop will have some Intel for you.”

Safe harbor, for now.

#logs of an android #stories #writing #scifi #sci fi & fantasy #science fiction #fiction #text post #fantasy #cyberpunk

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Webb finds signs of possible aurorae on isolated brown dwarf

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere. This is an unexpected discovery because the brown dwarf, W1935, is cold and lacks a host star; therefore, there is no obvious source for the upper atmosphere energy. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae.

These findings are being presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.

To help explain the mystery of the infrared emission from methane, the team turned to our solar system. Methane in emission is a common feature in gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. The upper-atmosphere heating that powers this emission is linked to aurorae.

On Earth, aurorae are created when energetic particles blown into space from the Sun are captured by Earth’s magnetic field. They cascade down into our atmosphere along magnetic field lines near Earth’s poles, colliding with gas molecules and creating eerie, dancing curtains of light. Jupiter and Saturn have similar auroral processes that involve interacting with the solar wind, but they also get auroral contributions from nearby active moons like Io (for Jupiter) and Enceladus (for Saturn).

For isolated brown dwarfs like W1935, the absence of a stellar wind to contribute to the auroral process and explain the extra energy in the upper atmosphere required for the methane emission is a mystery. The team surmises that either unaccounted internal processes like the atmospheric phenomena of Jupiter and Saturn, or external interactions with either interstellar plasma or a nearby active moon, may help account for the emission.

A Detective Story

The aurorae’s discovery played out like a detective story. A team led by Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was awarded time with the Webb telescope to investigate 12 cold brown dwarfs. Among those were W1935 – an object that was discovered by citizen scientist Dan Caselden, who worked with the Backyard Worlds zooniverse project – and W2220, an object that was discovered using NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer. Webb revealed in exquisite detail that W1935 and W2220 appeared to be near clones of each other in composition. They also shared similar brightness, temperatures, and spectral features of water, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. The striking exception was that W1935 showed emission from methane, as opposed to the anticipated absorption feature that was observed toward W2220. This was seen at a distinct infrared wavelength to which Webb is uniquely sensitive.

“We expected to see methane because methane is all over these brown dwarfs. But instead of absorbing light, we saw just the opposite: The methane was glowing. My first thought was, what the heck? Why is methane emission coming out of this object?” said Faherty.

The team used computer models to infer what might be behind the emission. The modeling work showed that W2220 had an expected distribution of energy throughout the atmosphere, getting cooler with increasing altitude. W1935, on the other hand, had a surprising result. The best model favored a temperature inversion, where the atmosphere got warmer with increasing altitude.  “This temperature inversion is really puzzling,” said Ben Burningham, a co-author from the University of Hertfordshire in England and lead modeler on the work. “We have seen this kind of phenomenon in planets with a nearby star that can heat the stratosphere, but seeing it in an object with no obvious external heat source is wild.”  

Clues from our Solar System

For clues, the team looked in our own backyard, to the planets of our solar system. The gas giant planets can serve as proxies for what is seen going on more than 40 light-years away in the atmosphere of W1935.

The team realized that temperature inversions are prominent in planets like Jupiter and Saturn. There is still ongoing work to understand the causes of their stratospheric heating, but leading theories for the solar system involve external heating by aurorae and internal energy transport from deeper in the atmosphere (with the former a leading explanation).

Brown Dwarf Aurora Candidates in Context

This is not the first time an aurora has been used to explain a brown dwarf observation. Astronomers have detected radio emission coming from several warmer brown dwarfs and invoked aurorae as the most likely explanation. Searches were conducted with ground-based telescopes like the Keck Observatory for infrared signatures from these radio-emitting brown dwarfs to further characterize the phenomenon, but were inconclusive.

W1935 is the first auroral candidate outside the solar system with the signature of methane emission. It’s also the coldest auroral candidate outside our solar system, with an effective temperature of about 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius), about 600 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than Jupiter.

In our solar system the solar wind is a primary contributor to auroral processes, with active moons like Io and Enceladus playing a role for planets like Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. W1935 lacks a companion star entirely, so a stellar wind cannot contribute to the phenomenon. It is yet to be seen whether an active moon might play a role in the methane emission on W1935. 

“With W1935, we now have a spectacular extension of a solar system phenomenon without any stellar irradiation to help in the explanation.” Faherty noted. “With Webb, we can really ‘open the hood’ on the chemistry and unpack how similar or different the auroral process may be beyond our solar system,” she added.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

TOP IMAGE....This artist concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found infrared emission from methane coming from W1935. This is an unexpected discovery because the brown dwarf is cold and lacks a host star; therefore, there is no obvious source of energy to heat its upper atmosphere and make the methane glow. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae, shown here in red. Credit NASA, ESA, CSA, and L. Hustak (STScI)

LOWER IMAGE....Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study 12 cold brown dwarfs. Two of them – W1935 and W2220 – appeared to be near twins of each other in composition, brightness, and temperature. However, W1935 showed emission from methane, as opposed to the anticipated absorption feature that was observed toward W2220. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae. NASA, ESA, CSA, and L. Hustak (STScI)

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #esa #astrophysics

[hectormcfilm]

Interstellar

I have seen this film multiple times but was lucky enough to be able to watch it at the cinema. This has never been my favourite Nolan film but is definitely in his top 5 and is one of his most visually striking and cinematic films so I was exhilarated to see it on the big screen.

To start off the first act of this film doesn't get spoken about enough, the opening scenes done in an almost documentary style that seem initially so out of place are very intriguing and create a sense of mystery as to how this film will end and what the timeline is. I adore the subtle world building established in this opening act, having the earth slowly devolving, crops dying one by one, leaving the world with only corn by the start of the film. This choice allows for the beautiful setting of a giant cornfield and illustrates how limited the resources are. To add on the constant dust and dirt adds a dystopian feel without going hyperbolic and stereotypically totalitarian and apocalyptic, so subtle but perfect. Finally the world building of the moon landing being seen as just a tactic to bankrupt the soviets to deter people from wanting to travel to space or explore as the worlds focus is replenishing its resources and agriculture is genius. People focus too much on purely the visuals and music of this film when the world building and slower first act establishes the tone and characters so well.

Matthew McConaughy provides an exceptional and emotionally vulnerable performance in this film. Interstellar came out during the peak of his incredible run of True detective, where he played one of my favourite protagonists in TV history with Rust Cohle, Dallas Buyers club, playing a homophobic southerner learning the hardships and horrors of the Aids crisis and becoming a spokesperson for gay people, and his iconic and memorable cameo in the Wolf of Wall Street. His role as Cooper released during the middle of this legendary run and his performance doesn't disappoint, bringing so much humanity and charm to Cooper and having multiple scenes where his acting alone can bring me to tears. The best example of this is during my favourite sequence of the film, the water planet leading to him receiving the messages.

The tension on the water planet is palpable and the reveal the mountains are actually waves is gut wrenching, the detail of every tick in the music being a day on earth is terrifying when rewatching and the sequence stays breath-taking until they escape. Then the film slows down to allow Cooper to listen to all the years worth of messages he missed and McConaughy's performance shines as he cries, celebrates and laughs over the messages, watching his children grow up and change in front of him. Ending this perfect scene with the reveal his daughter is now the same age as him, a crushing realisation and a great call-back.

Obviously two of the best elements are the cinematography and music, Hans Zimmer brings his A game with one of his best scores to date, the unique piano and crystal organ music adds such a distinct and dramatic sound to the film. All the shots of space and the endurance floating or spinning through it are gorgeous and the use of no sound in space adds so much tension and suspense.

My only problem with this film is the fact it loses me slightly in the third act with the strange time paradox or future humans helping using the 5th dimension, it is a bit too vague for my liking and despite having black holes and worm holes feels unexplained and unrealistic as other sci-fi elements are given some explanation besides this. I still love the emotion of the third act but no the logic.

Overall its excellent. P.s. Tars is one of the best robots in film history.

[denimbex1986]

'Critically acclaimed producer and director Christopher Nolan blew it out of the water with his latest film, “Oppenheimer,” released this Friday. Centered around the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), this movie recounts the theoretical physicist’s tumultuous life and his role in the Manhattan Project.

Nolan had a great task at hand: condensing Oppenheimer's eventful life into just three hours. Before leading the top-secret Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer was an ambitious young scientist and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. The film touches on his ties to communism and fervent communist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), with whom he had an affair. After World War II ended, The US government viciously deposed Oppenheimer for his past affiliations with the Communist Party while also facing the guilt of designing the weapon with the capacity to end mankind. Oppenheimer’s story is turbulent and intriguing and it is truly amazing to catch a glimpse into one of the world's greatest minds.

Oppenheimer’s affair, depositions and the hearings of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downie Jr.) are all extensive and important storylines throughout the movie, not to mention the Manhattan project. In this regard, Nolan may have bitten off a little more than he could chew, as characters within these plot points aren’t fully fleshed out. David Hill (Rami Malek) only has a minor role in the film, until he curiously turns up during an important scene and steals the show. It is never explicitly explained who he is or where he came from. Even Strauss, the main antagonist of the film, felt like he was lacking development.

Nolan structured the plot in a unique fashion, revealing fragments of Oppenheimer’s life during different periods of the movie. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the film revisits vague or unfinished scenes to add context or that missing piece to allow the audience to understand the full picture. To highlight this film technique, the words ‘fission’ and ‘fusion’ can be seen in the opening scene, meaning a division into parts and the joining of things to form a single entity.

In Nolan's previous works, cinematography has always been a strong suit. Films like “Interstellar” and “Inception” include breathtaking shots and electrifying scenes. In “Oppenheimer,” various scenes utilize close-ups of Oppenheimer’s facial expressions to portray his immense feelings of guilt and remorse.

In addition, Nolan prefers to capture scenes without the use of CGI. In the 2020 movie “Tenet,” Nolan blew up a real Boeing 747 and opted to go a similar route for the Trinity test in “Oppenheimer” (the first atomic bomb test in Los Alamos). Although the specific details of how Nolan captured the Trinity test scene remain a mystery, Nolan confirmed the crew used camera trickery and smaller explosions to recreate the detonations of an atomic bomb. The sheer dedication to making every scene as real as possible isn’t without return, it does astound you.

Composer Ludwig Göransson delivered a remarkable score that amplified the emotions of every scene. In the more suspenseful moments, the music was deafeningly intense. Unfortunately, in many instances, the music masked the actors' lines, which made it harder to follow the face-paced and elaborate plot.

However, “Oppenheimer” is definitely worth your time and money to see. The minor flaws barely take away from the film. The plot is engaging and the science is fascinating. Cillian Murphy put in an Oscar-worthy performance that was incredible to watch. If you are interested in a thought-provoking movie that goes beyond your typical war movie, I highly recommend “Oppenheimer.”'

#Oppenheimer #Christopher Nolan #Los Alamos #Trinity test #Cillian Murphy #Lewis Strauss #Jean Tatlock #Robert Downey Jr #Florence Pugh #Rami Malek #Inception #Interstellar #Ludwig Goransson #Tenet #David Hill