#xenoforming

[octorocktopus]

Off the Hook xeno designs yay

#splatoon #splatoon art #splatoon xenoform #xeno inkling #xeno octoling #xeno tag #splatoon pearl #splatoon marina #off the hook #marina ida #pearl houzuki #glitched art

[howlingday]

Coming to Terms

Taiyang: So, uh, Ruby, I know you're... really, really enjoying this furry business, and it's taken me a lot of time to accept this as your lifestyle. But if I could make a suggestion, might I recommend making your identity the tiger? It is a strong animal with many strengths and benefits. The tiger is mighty among the animal kingdom for it's-

Ruby: Actually, Dad, I identify as a gopher.

Taiyang: YOU'RE GONNA BE A FRIGGIN GOPHER OVER A TIGER?! BWAH?!

Ruby: They're cute!

Taiyang: No self-respecting daughter of mine is going to be a weak, little gopher!

Oobleck: Excuse me, Tai, but the gopher is actually one nature's most prominent killers. They submerge into subterranean tunnels and lure their human prey into a false sense of security. They then launch themselves up through the anus and exepel from the chest, much like the xenoforms in those Visitors movie, which were based on several political assassinations documented as heart attacks. Pish posh, I say!

Taiyang: Bart, don't indulge her! That's a load of crap!

Port: Well, even if that isn't true, you have to admit that gophers are quite adorable. I find their tiny, round bodies quite inspiring!

Taiyang: Well, your opinion matters even less to me.

Qrow: DangitTaidon'tyouknowtigersain't... Ain'tsogreat? They'redyin'outrealfastand... Andtheydon'evencare. Gophers'regonna... Gonnabeherewaylongerthanthemtigers...

Taiyang: ...Damn. Well, if this is the rule of democracy, I shall accept it.

---------------------------------------------------

Ruby: (Gopher fursuit)

Qrow: (Gopher fursuit)

Port: (Gopher fursuit)

Oobleck: (Gopher fursuit)

Taiyang: (Gopher fursuit) On second thought, I now hate democracy.

#rwby #taiyang xiao long #ruby rose #bartholomew oobleck #peter port #qrow branwen #doobus goobus

[dragonthunders01]

This was a drawing I was planning to finish on the days of the debut of Godzilla KotM but I never did as I wanted with the idea of the "original form" of Ghidorah after it arrive to earth as an extraterrestrial lifeform, being less dragonish and more this abomination of tentacles and barely any resemblance to earth life. 

The concept I imagine of how it went from that to the characteristic dragon-like form was that in orden to adapt to the conditions of earth, it assimilated the DNA of titans it feed or defeated and integrated to its biology, eventually turning into a more earth like organism at least until it could be able to properly "Xenoform" earth, the reasoning of the triple jaw is for the way how Kevin's head regenerated with the horns and ornaments of its head came out like petals of a "blossoming flower" in a specific divergence, as well with multiple tentacles like limbs based on how the wing and tail structured, maybe the legs were once individual limbs that fused in orden to support its body.

#kaiju #king ghidorah #godzilla #king of the monsters

[tanadrin]

I think it is often difficult for readers to get a sense of the scales under discussion when we talk about wider interstellar history. The truth is, galactic "civilization," if I may use that term for the very different species that are more or less involved in diplomacy and exchange with one another, is both very old and very young. It is old in the sense that many different generations of species have come and gone on the galactic stage. The Helvetiosans and Chalawani, for example, are distantly related members of the Delta Pavonis clade, which itself originates from a region of space at least a thousand light-years rimward of the Local Sector. Genetic reconstructions date the clade to at least 25,000 YBP. Archeology and sources like the Helvetiosan mythohistoric cycles indicate several phases of expansion and decline across that period, which have left behind many inhabited worlds with unique features shared only by Pavonid offshoots. The Titawinese species in around 6,000 years old, and, because they were directly created by the Saffarid Progenitor Civilization, they have a continuous and complete historical record from that time, which details early sublight exploration of their stellar neighborhood and first contact with numerous neighboring species. To us, these seem like quite long stretches of time. And they are, especially against a human lifetime. We stared up at the sky in stupefied ignorance while the Titawinese were exploring deep space. And from the other view, there is a vast expanse of time in the history of the galaxy of which we know nothing. The ruins of the outer moons of Edasich may be as old as forty thousand years; their builders are unknown. The Great Wreck of Moriah is nearly a hundred thousand years old. And then there is the Sagarmathid Gravitational Anomaly may be an artificial structure that is four hundred million years old.

Wolfling species like our own--those without any spacefaring ancestry--are in a peculiar position. We tend at once to be rather old and rather young. The first Osmians appeared ninety thousand years ago; the first Osmians to leave their homeworld did so aboard human ships, about two hundred years ago. The progenitors of the human clade are possibly two and a half million years old, older than any other sentient clade we have encountered, though we only achieved anything like our current form two to three hundred thousand years ago. It is for that reason that the Chalawani sometimes call us the Eldest, or the Stargazers. But by interstellar standards we exhibited a curious stasis for countless generations, while far away mighty empires rose and fell; even once we had definitely attained behavioral modernity by fifty thousand years ago, we continued to live a curiously complacent lifestyle, until in a feverish rush we sprang from the first cities to the warp drive in a single 6,000 year leap. Thus the Helvetosians call us the Newcomers, and the Intruders--and they are not exactly wrong.

Most life-bearing worlds we encounter have a common genetic history with other worlds--usually hundreds, and probably in most cases thousands. This is not in itself a surprising statistic: even if only a handful of species build true interstellar civilizations capable of xenoforming worlds, and even if that xenoforming takes many centuries, within a few million years, most inhabited worlds in a galaxy as planet-rich as ours will be xenoformed in origin. Indeed, according to some xenobiologists, the surprise is not that so many worlds bear the traces of previous civilizations, but that any wolfling planets exist at all. What presents a puzzle for the xenologers is that the horizon of known galactic history is so short: where are the continuous civilizations that are ten thousand years old? One hundred thousand? Ten million? One billion? Why does there appear to be a kind of Fermi filter, an absence of continuous technological, interstellar civilization beyond the last one hundred thousand years or so? Why, in fact, is the galaxy not dominated by such ancient civilizations, given that they have had billions of years to establish themselves?

Several solutions have been offered to this problem. One, perhaps it is an issue of statistical bias: even now, Frontier has surveyed only a tiny fraction of our little corner of the galaxy. The portion that has been explored in depth is even smaller. That galactic civilization is young in the Local Sector does not mean galactic civilization is young in the Milky Way. Two, perhaps conditions were not right for forming life-bearing worlds much before a few billion years ago, and given the complexity of intelligence required to journey into space, the great floresence of galactic civilization has only just begun. This hypothesis would stand only if the Sagarmathid Anomaly, and sites like it, could not be conclusively shown to be of very ancient artificail origin. Three, perhaps the constraint is social in nature--the difficulty of maintaining an interconnected interstellar civilization is such that periodic collapse is inevitable, followed by a long dark age. And a few creative paranoiacs have proposed the possibility the filter is exogenous in nature--that there is something in the galaxy that does not brook anything that might rival it in power, and that will eventually seek out and destroy any alien that makes its presence known.

Personally, I think no solution to this question is satisfactory; I am not even convinced it is a well-formed question. It assumes a universal worldview to be shared by all potential alien civilizations, and one that is rather humanlike. Or, to be more specific, rather like us humans as we are now--explorers, seekers, colonizers, builders--without admitting any possibility of change. I think it is possible, and even likely, that there are indeed very old civilizations in this galaxy; but that it is entirely possible we would be unable to recognize them for what they were, unless they condescended to make themselves known to us. And there may be civilizations that were once like us, but now are rather more like our ancestors, the Stargazers of our long, quiet childhood on Earth. And there are, no doubt, aliens with minds as complex and as subtle as ours, but so strange we would not even recognize them as sentient beings at first. Perhaps we have even already encountered a few. In short, the galaxy is not only stranger than we know; it is probably stranger than we possibly can know. Keep this in mind on your first deep space assignment.

--Karel Mora, An Introduction to Xenology for Starship Officers, 3rd. edition.

#tanadrin's fiction

[spindlephysalia]

I think the most interesting thing you can do with a hive swarm is tosstohem into an ecosystem they are horrifically ill-equipped to deal with. Not in a tactical way, in a way more core to the representation of these swarms as ecologically hyperactive xenoformers.

Like yea, you can gestate a fifteen-foot tall cyclopean bug with a combat laser recofigured out of its eyes but this is tundra where none of your sessile organisms can take root in the rock and the ecology available for you to consume is 90% mosses. The story about managing that ecology to the point where you can hit the "ravenous tide of flesh and chitin" is way cooler a story than just teh ravenous tide of flesh and chitin.

#spindleering #Hivecore

[hrodvitnon]

I was browsing the Abraxas TV Tropes pages, and the ask you answered in December 2022 about what would've happened to Earth if Abraxas!Ghidorah had destroyed it in the Mass Awakening has gotten me curious about something. If as you said, Exterminatusing the Earth with perpetual storms and the enthralled Earthborn Titans wasn't even the real xenoforming process with that only coming afterwards if Ghidorah had felt like staying on the planet for a while longer, do you have any headcanons for what the real xenoforming would have looked like in that scenario, or what it may have looked like on any pre-Earth destroyed planets where Ghidorah similarly had an extended post-conquest stay?

I'll be honest, I haven't given it much thought. Even if Ghidorah has an extended stay on a planet after razing it to the ground, that leaves only the surviving Titans under its thrall, not that they'd survive for much longer. Would Ghidorah even be able to stay on one conquered world long enough to make it somewhat livable before the Old Noise reared its ugly head? It knows from experience that ignoring the Old Noise won't accomplish anything; though maybe the thought of making something out of a once lush planet turned stormy rock might cross its minds once the Old Noise begins to fade somewhat.

Perhaps on a whim or out of post-apocalyptic boredom, an ancient memory might briefly resurface of three small creatures making a home. Digging a hole that becomes a warren, with many tunnels, deep enough that nothing might find them. That was the only definition of "home" they knew once. Ghidorah could've certainly tried. Halted the storm beating down the planet so they can hear themselves think of something to do with this hunk of dirt, at least until frustration and the need to kill drove them to leave. Whatever attempts at xenoforming they make might be equivalent to giving a toddler a multi-layered puzzle too complicated for them to work with and giving them no instruction of what to do, until they naturally lose patience and kick the pieces around in a tantrum. Ghidorah was made for the purpose of destruction, after all. But the idea of really creating something worthwhile wouldn't occur to them until they encountered certain minds on Earth.

(Side Note: Considering Gigan's fleet would be familiar with Ghidorah, or passed down tales of them across the generations anyway, maybe a splinter of the fleet would be dedicated to following the path of destruction and logging their findings to the main fleet, which would inevitably bring them to Earth. They might be more adept at making something out of the nothing Ghidorah leaves behind, or even the pieces of Ghidorah. (Its murder campaign is an Experience for the victims, but since just about nobody lives to tell the tale, the Experience lacks meaning. The fleet's Ghidorah-rooted generational trauma does not help at all.))

#Anonymous #abraxasverse #king ghidorah

[autoboros]

Made Auto a xenoform yippe, hope you like it

have a nice day

DUUUDEE I LOVE THIS WHAT THE HELL

XENO AUTO!! I'm smiling like a goof man thank you so much

Your xeno designs are so good this makes me so happy :'D

#exploding for the next billion years thinking about this #i think you drew a xeno ocho once and i legitimately think about that forever because i love the designs #xeno auto is real... finaly.. #rotating him in my brain #splatoon 3 #xeno octoling #splatoon oc #banger art

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

The Ciprians

The Royal Republic of Ciprine is the nationstate inhabited by the majority of the Ciprian species. While vaguely resembling avians and largely covered in a metallic carapace, Ciprians are in fact mammalian, giving live birth and nursing their young. Being descended from an arboreal flight capable predator species has given Ciprians traits such as forward-facing eyes, clawed hands, and a prominent array of teeth. They are omnivores, but their dietary needs skew towards requiring a high amount of meat. Their carapace evolved as a form of natural armor, as their primordial ancestors were not at the top of the food chain - while it offers some protection against blunt force trauma and low velocity impacts, the carapace does not protect against small arms fire, either projectile or directed energy based. Ciprians value the ecosystem of their planet, and have become leading galactic experts at preservation and maintenance of planetary climate and terra/xenoformation. Indeed, it was Ciprian technology, after first contact with humanity in 2153, that enabled the reversal of many of the worst effects of climate change on the human homeworld.

Ciprian society is strictly regimented by educational level, with citizenship tiers beginning at 0 (children who have yet to enter schooling), and ending at 27. Ciprian society retains a monarch (styled as Emperor/Empress; seat currently held by Empress Caela VII), who is largely a figurehead, but who retains a small amount of personal power in executive matters. Citizens may gain promotion to higher tiers via exams held by the government every two years. This process is automatic as part of initial public education, but becomes voluntary and semi-competitive once a citizen has exited public education.

In order to display rank and status, Ciprians wear facial markings in a variety of patterns and colors, with different components to denote different aspects of their highest attained educational level.

For a typical Ciprian, markings concentrated on the forehead denote the Ciprian's home city/town/province (thus these are the first marks ever received, even before entering schooling), while the pattern of marks on the cheeks denote the field of study; mandible markings indicate how long one has studied for, and bands on the crest denote scores achieved in each year of education. Jewelry of varying type and expensive is pierced through the mandibles to denote degrees and honors earned. The color and pattern of all but the crest markings denotes a specific educational institution, which each having a specific pattern and color scheme. Ciprians who attend educational institutions outside the boundaries of Ciprian space are not required to have such markings, but over the centuries, an official register of marking colors/patterns has been developed for such educational institutions. Ciprian language also has an extensive list of honorifics used to refer to others by educational level. These terms do not always fully translate into Astral Confederation Standard with their nuance intact, so the Ciprian government takes pains to educate those non-Ciprians whom frequently interact with their people in their proper use and pronunciation (to the degree afforded by their biological structures).

This system of publically marking education levels has led to three specific cultural anecdotes of note - the phenomenon of "bareface", the expression "goldcrest", and the depiction of the Ciprians primary deity.

While there is no legal requirement to wear educational markings past age of maturity, the practice has become so widespread and ingrained in Ciprian lifestyle that someone choosing not to wear markings into adulthood is regarded as an outlier, usually by someone who wishes to hide their educational past, or else have decided that they do not wish to be associated with it any longer. These "barefaced" Ciprians are commonly stereotyped as uneducated or ashamed of their education, nefarious or wishing to hide their education for deceptive purpose, or arrogant and willingfully ignorant of fact (a state of mind somewhat tantamount to blasphemy for most Ciprians).

The expression "goldcrest" relates to the practice of marking out an individual's attained grades on their crests, with bands composed of copper, silver, gold, or platinum colored paint based on what specific grade was achieved on the relevant exams - copper for a passing grade without distinction, silver for an above average grade, and gold for exemplary marks. The rare platinum crest marks are reserved for the single highest scoring individual taking the exam on a regional level. In this context, "Goldcrest" would, literally speaking, refer to a Ciprian with all, or nearly all, gold exam markings, this indicating a high level of knowledge and ability. Figuratively, to be called a "goldcrest" is an extremely positive complement, implying the speaker sees the addressee as someone who is wise and competent to a great degree.

The Emperor/Empress and their immediate family are traditionally the only Ciprians who wear gold face markings. These marks represent education at the Royal Academy of Darvan, which is traditionally and nearly-exclusively open solely to members of the royal family; an intensely competitive lottery process allows a handful of non-royals to attend every year, but graduating is quite difficult and time-consuming. However, no living Ciprian may be allowed to wear platinum marks (save for on the crest in very specific circumstances, as previously mentioned). Full platinum facial markings are considered the sole province of the Ciprian god of creation and knowledge, Sæar'kalan. Often depicted as being entirely covered in a platinum carapace and covered in markings across their body, Sæar'kalan represents the omnipotence of a being who has attained all the knowledge of the universe. Worshipped by the vast majority of the Ciprian people, Sæar'kalan was, according to legend, once a mortal like any other, but attained access to a mythical realm or state of being which granted them all knowledge, past, present, and future, similar to human concepts such as the Akashic records.

To the Ciprians, scientific disiplines, the arts, recordkeeping, and engineering are the most respected professions, as they enable the discovery, expression, safeguarding, and practical use of the knowledge attained by society as a whole. These professions often interweave with each other, leading Ciprians to build devices that are often just as much art pieces as they are practical items. Drawing from their species' arboreal past and use of natural materials, many Ciprian luxury starships are both built and grown, with aerospace-grade wooden hulls grown around metallic structural skeletons, inlaid with natural material accents like marble, gold, leather, and copper.

The Royal Republic became a full Confederation member in 2164, the first species to join after the original seven.

#astralverse #original sci fi #worldbuilding

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review #1: Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff Vandermeer

Okay, so 60 books and a review for each one, totally reasonable New Years resolution, right? Lets go. First up is the one I got for Christmas.

I’ve been a fan of Vadermeer for a long time, and his work’s always worth reading (though the first one I read was Annihilation and nothing he’s written since has really lived up to it). This was no exception – though it was by far the least genre-ficcy thing of his I’ve ever read. Which, low bar – note the lack of invasive xenoforming processes or building-sized flying bears or alternate universes – but still, I kept expecting it to get weirder than it did?

Not that it didn’t get weird – just, ‘technothriller 20 minutes in the future’ weird, not ‘cosmic horror’ weird. Though the ending did blur the lines a bit, I suppose.

The overall tone of oppressive, apocalyptic dread, of everyone just keeping their heads down and trying to keep going about their days as the natural disasters pile up and things keep falling apart, is really very well done and vivid. Even if the politics are a bit deep green and the portrayal worst-case, it really was a future sliding into dystopia and apocalypse that felt plausible and lived in and real, compared with what a lot of climate fiction goes with.

Beyond that – plot wise, the book kind of reminded me of Strange Bird? Not so much because of any of the beats in particular, but just because it felt to a great degree like a story of failure? Like, Jane’s primarily, but also everyone else’s. There’s a lot of bathos, of missed opportunities and fuck ups and conversations that never happen and relationships ruined and people hurt for basically no gain at all. There are multiple time skips where Jane just gives up for months or years, too. The ending’s a bit redemptive, a bit transcendent, but even that – Silvina died too, and she was as close to a world-shaking heroine as the story can provide. And a lot of the suffering on the way to the ending was less necessary and more just bad luck.

Jane as a protagonist was interesting – so self-deluding, so self-destructive, so totally incapable of having a single open and honest conversation with literally anyone. To the extent the book is a technothriller, ‘security consultant whose also a former semi-pro bodybuilder and built like a brick shithouse’ sure feels like a description of a Tom Clancy knockoff’s hero (and it’s definitely a case where taking a very generic character and gender-flipping them makes them much more interesting), even if all the muscle mass in the world didn’t really end up helping too often against knives and rifles.

Anyway, as usual with Vandermeer the prose was lovely, and the cryptozoology believable and downright hauntingly beautiful to read about. Guy really should just write a birdwatching guide, or something – he’s very clearly in love with nature, in a way that’s halfway uncanny but always lovely when you read it.

Still not better than Annihilation, but not at all unhappy about having read it.

#Hummingbird Salamander #jeff vandermeer #sff #book review

[ancientroyals]

Torshan Story Segment One

A Rough Landing

No Trigger Warnings

Seven years ago, nobody knew that the island nation of Torshan even existed, much less where it was on a map. It wasn’t until the appearance of what we now call Xenoforms on the island that it started to draw international attention. Overnight, navies from the most powerful countries on earth had arrived at Torshan to pacify this new and alien threat. We found out quickly that these Xenoforms would be a far greater challenge than any other living foe humans had encountered. Aside from being simply stronger and faster, many of them possessed supernatural abilities that could potentially decimate platoons or even entire companies of soldiers single handedly. Despite overwhelming losses, we were no closer to destroying the Xenoform threat on the island. When one fell, two more would take its place. It was a battle that could not be won conventionally. So world leaders made the decision to meet with select members of the Xenoform resistance in an attempt to resolve the dispute diplomatically.

Three years after the first appearance of Xenoforms on Torshan, active hostilities finally ceased. The exact nature of the agreement made between the Xenoforms and humanity was never released. Speculation and conspiracies were commonplace. To those of us on the outside, looking in, it shook everything we thought we knew about our universe. Life was indeed out there, but it was nothing like what we expected. The true nature of the Xenoforms is still a mystery. That is why you have been requested to travel to Torshan and assist the Office of Xenoform Enforcement and Neutralization to learn more about the new citizens of Torshan.

In a highly controversial decision, the naval blockade was never dissolved after the ceasefire was announced. This effectively trapped the human citizens of Torshan with the Xenoforms also now inhabiting the island. Neither side was particularly happy about the new arrangement. Tensions ran high for at least another couple of years. With the help of both the newly formed OXEN and sympathetic Xenoforms, insurrection was kept at a minimum. Eventually, both the humans and the Xenoforms began to grow accustomed to their new neighbors. Resentment was still high, but hostilities began to cool. Now it isn’t uncommon to see, what many would call monsters, participating in civilized society like the rest of humanity.

Though, it would be silly to say there was peace. Violence between Xenoforms and humans was still rampant. That’s where OXEN comes in. Their primary goal is to maintain Xenoform compliance and protection of the human population. They’re specially equipped and trained to engage with Xenoforms. The Office has been keeping a running list of all encountered Xenoforms and what their abilities are. With your help, maybe we can finally figure out what the Xenoforms really are and where they’re from.

“Five minutes until touchdown,” the voice crackled over the headset. “We’ve got a bogey on the scope. Shouldn’t be an issue but we probably won’t be able to do the meet and greet on the tarmac.”

You were being flown in by helicopter to the island's only airport. Torshan doesn’t get any flights anymore, so it’s been converted by OXEN into their primary base of operations on the island. It would be there where you would meet your handler. The person to help accommodate you to life on the island as it was unlike anywhere else on the planet.

You could feel it in your guts as the helicopter rapidly descended. Looking out of the window, you could see the pacific ocean rising up to meet you. The pilot arrested the descent just as quickly as it began, leveling out just feet above the surface of the water. In the blink of an eye, the water turned to sand and from sand, to asphalt. The helicopter rattled and shook as the pilot pushed the airframe to its limits. It wasn’t until after the helicopter screeched to a halt that you realized how tightly you were holding onto the armrests.

A violent gust of air hit you smack in the face as the side door slid open. It took you a moment to regain your bearings and rub the dust from your eyes. A soldier had climbed into the helicopter and helped you undo your seat harness. They said something to you, but the sheer volume of the rotors spinning down deafened you to the world. Waiting for you outside of the helicopter was a contingent of OXEN officers. Most were heavily armed save for one standing front and foremost.

The middle-aged man wore a white button-down shirt tucked into a pair of black cargo pants. He rested both hands inside of his bullet-resistant vest. A handgun was holstered to the outside of his right thigh. He seemed more like an office worker with a vest and a gun than a soldier. Once you had cleared the helicopter, the man approached you with a friendly smile. The wash from the rotors billowed his short, brown hair. He removed one hand from the inside of his vest and offered it to you.

“Tomas Harris,” he introduced himself. His voice seemed to project effortlessly over the sound of the helicopter. “Glad to finally have you on the island.” After shaking your hand, he gave you a firm pat on the back and guided you toward the terminal building.

“Hopefully if we get done with orientation soon enough, there might still be time to take you for some rounds.” Tomas smiled, and was going to continue speaking until he was interrupted by a thunderous crash followed by guttural growl that seemed to rumble your insides.

On top of the air traffic control tower was perched a dragon still furling its massive wings. Its white scales were contrasted by the significantly thicker, pale crimson plates armoring their underbelly. A silvery mane billowed in the winds two-hundred feet off the ground. Out of everyone standing exposed out on the ramp, you couldn’t help but feel as if those rose colored eyes were looking just at you.

Now it's your turn! comment your commands to decide your next course of action!

NEXT

#torshan #interactive story

[octorocktopus]

Oh it's the hierarchy guys omg

I crave for Hiroo on a dress so bad hes a handsy boy on a dress he deserves it

XENO DESIGNS!!!

Have a nice day

AUGH

#coroika #splatoon manga #splatoon #splatoon art #splatoon xenoform #xeno inkling #xeno octoling #splatoon hirooooo #splatoon anemoneno1 #splatoon c4l4m4r #splatoon kayos

[scorpiotrait]

EV3 is rewarded for her xenoforming efforts with: a swarm of garbage flies!

#ts4 #100bc #3VE-001 #100 baby challenge

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Intelligent life

Some planets are built for intelligent life. Asteroids sculpted into warrens of caves; barren hunks of rock, terraformed or xenoformed and fashioned into some new sort of home. Even space stations, welcoming travellers to their titanium shores, may grow so large that they form fresh worlds in their own right, the perfect fit for their ingenious creators.

More commonly, they develop new intelligent life of their own: dominant species emerging from within a stable habitat, organically learning to improve their lot, finding ways to bend the rules of nature. They come writhing out of the ocean, clambering down from the trees, and crawling out of ignorance with their tools and words and memories, on the path to claim their birthplace as their throne.

Still more planets do not see intelligent life at all, passing their entire lifespan in that blessed silence, that blissful ignorance - although as such, any species they do possess are unaware of quite how fortunate they are.

But there are some - a rare, ill-fated few - which simply have it thrust upon them.

The Sierra 470 hadn't been meant to ferry pioneers through space. It was only a small gondola under a solar sail, suitable for brief trips between greater craft, with barely enough room for its current occupants. But it had been built as the lifeboat for the ship which had.

That mighty vessel, the SKG Ultramarine, had been en route to a neighbouring galaxy when it was grounded on an iceberg of asteroid debris, its hull ruptured beyond repair. Amongst that backdrop of catastrophe, these escape pods had been cast like dandelion seeds upon the solar winds.

Guntan-B3 was an ocean planet, a few bald islands in a frozen sea, and not the most welcoming to terrestrial life. Still, the crew of the Sierra met it with the gratitude of a drowning man clutching a proffered hand, without pausing to check if it belonged to friend or foe. Like beggars, refugees were seldom afforded the luxury of choice.

Their capsule arrived as a stray bullet, hurtling through the emptiness of space, and punctured the planet's atmosphere as much by chance as by design. For the tightly huddled masses inside, it was a welcome break from the terror of the abyss. They cannonballed into the lilac surf, sending a plume of water soaring overhead and giving rise to ripples which led waves to crash on distant shores... and then set about following them.

Their lifeboat had washed up onto a desert island, in a sense, although Guntan-B3 had few true islands to offer them. The Sierra 470 was not meant for life at sea, and the survivors had to repurpose it into a raft: broken girders turned to oars, the solar sail cut loose, and new sails stitched from the robes of those who'd fallen in the crash.

They cannibalised the ship's technology, air conditioning systems becoming a rudimentary motor, and it wasn't long before they thought about doing the same to each other. Day followed day, and their stores began to look as bare as the horizon, a hazy smudge between the ashen sky and purple sea. No doves appeared to save them from the flood, and lead them to their Mouth Ararat.

But then the peolops did.

They were roughly seal-like in appearance, rotund yet sleek, or simply adapted to a life in the sea. The crew named them for the sounds they made, a sort of bubbling greeting as they looked up to the makeshift deck. They were curious, friendly, unafraid - and why would they be? They had no natural predators, and had hitherto been alone above the waves, where they only came to breed in places where their young could also feel secure.

Intentionally or not, they led the Sierra 470 to one such site, a rocky atoll that barely rose above the surf. It was a snug fit for one corner of the spacecraft's hull, and they nestled into their new home, a place where they could stretch their legs and wade into the periwinkle shallows. They washed, and laughed, and thanked the peolops for their aid as they swam in circles around them.

But joy soon faded as their other needs returned. The pioneers were cold, and hungry, and desperate. It was nice to have friends, but all of the friendliness in the world couldn't furnish them with the other things they lacked. They had no need for companionship, on a lifeboat already crammed to the gills. They had a need for furs, and fire, and food. The peolops had a thick hide, and oily blubber, and plentiful flesh.

In future generations, the descendants of those settlors would tell each other stories of a world imbued with magic, of friendly animals that lived side-by-side, a world that could never exist. But there was no magic in their world. The pioneers had proven that. They scoured the oceans, tracked down every peolop on the planet, stripped them each down to their cartilage, and didn't find an ounce of magic in their hearts.

They had discovered a new life for themselves, utilising the remains of their technology to exert dominion, confusing their intelligence for wisdom. It was an oil lamp that cast a shadow over the rest of the planet. In the absence of the peolops to control their numbers, their prey species began to proliferate, and devoured the white coral which in turn gave them sustenance. Within a century of the Sierra 470's arrival, Guntam-B3 had become every bit as dead as the pioneers had first feared.

Again, adrift not in a flood but in a drought, a desert of their own design, they prayed for a dove to come and guide them on. Again, those prayers were answered: an intact spacecraft, making a controlled descent into the atmosphere in search of future colonies, discovered their atoll, the rusted, water-damaged homes, the apparent savages who huddled in the shallows underneath.

Once the language barrier was breached, they extended an invitation for the descendants to join them on their ship, and the survivors welcomed them with gratitude, sharing smiles of relief as they escorted them aboard. They were intrigued by this alien species, who seemed more advanced than they were now, and perhaps more than they'd ever been. Corralled into some sort of holding pen, they were curious, friendly, unafraid - and why would they be? They had grown up with dominion here.

Like the peolops, they had never known to fear a predator before.

#writing #short story #creative writing #original fiction #original writing

[kaijuposting]

The Precursors: what's been said about them?

The Precursors of Pacific Rim are some of the most enigmatic beings in the story, and very little is known about them, aside from them having a hivemind, creating the kaiju, and being aliens from another universe.

Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters contains a little information on them. According to the book, Guillermo del Toro wanted their appearance to convey "alien madness" - apparently, just looking into their eyes was supposed to be a terrifying experience. (One can't imagine this is very effective on a fandom that thinks beetles and isopods are adorable.)

The book also goes on to say:

"When I was a kid," says del Toro, "we used to catch these bugs in the pool. They had a translucent, hard shell and you could see their organs. I wanted the design to evoke that. Wayne Barlowe and Keith Thompson worked the final design. We gave the Precursors elements of ecclesiastical royalty, dividing them into cardinals and bishops."

Concept Artist Keith Thompson added decadent touches to the Precursors that resemble the trappings of French nobility from the pre-revolutionary era, such as high heels made of cartilage and bone, and pompadour head growths. "The Precursors weren't going to be just a great eye candy reveal," says Thompson. "They had to be part of this world that was behind everything that was going on in the movie. They have this heavily developed civilization that you only get a little hint of."

Visual Effects Supervisor Jamie Price says the Precursors were among the more interesting challenges for the visual effects team. "There's kind of a blurry line between the Precursors and the environment and the Kaiju themselves. It's almost like the Kaiju evolved out of the environment, and the Precursors, as they work on their machines, are almost organically attached to them."

In September of 2013, Travis Beacham posted about the Precursors' biology and culture on his blog. According to Beacham, the Precursors are a highly complex civilization with a variety of socio-physiological distinctions. Human categories like "male" and "female" fail to describe it on any level. They do have what can be thought of as cultural "genders" and biological "sexes," but both are clumsy, insufficient analogies.

Now, all of this could have very unfortunate implications if handled badly - many queerphobes like to claim that queerness is "bougie decadence" and something that the good, honest working class just doesn't have time for. But in the right hands, this could be a very interesting thing to explore! We're talking about an entire alien civilization with alien genders (if you can even call them genders)!

Of course, this might require admitting that the Precursors aren't inherently evil, that they're just an alien civilization that seems extremely weird to us humans, whose leaders just so happen to think that xenoforming an inhabited planet is a good idea (seriously you guys, there's other planets!). What if some of them could be talked into going to another planet? What if there was an entire rebellion in Precursor society?

But I digress!

So, yeah, that's what I've been able to scrounge up on the Precursors so far. It's not much, but I think that what there is, is actually pretty interesting!

#pacific rim #pacrim #precursors #pacific rim lore

[imiren-kul]

Just finished up my last day at the pizza place last night. So glad to be done with that job. The people were mostly fine, but everything else kinda sucked. Far too much work load, not enough pay, long hours. I guess I made quite the impact though in my 5 months working there. Everyone was kinda bummed to see me go.

I'm moving on to a different delivery job now though. One where I won't have to beat up my own vehicle. I'll be delivering ice cream for Blue Bell Creameries from now on. I start this coming Monday. It's a much better job. Higher pay, consistent hours, 4-day work week, and I'll get to use my CDL again.

I'll also be able to do more writing now that my hours are more predictable. So expect more stuff on my writing blog @ancientroyals. I'm thinking of doing a parallel story to the interactive one that shows the perspective of the Xenoforms and how your decisions impact them. Could be cool, maybe, we'll see.

#my words #update #FUCK YEAH #ICE CREAM

[agbpaints]

"In the long distant aeons, before your species species evolved to walk on two legs and think those thoughts beyond your next meal or mate, we strode the stars as beings much like you. We had flesh then, glorious and warm, capable of sensation and creation and life much like you."

"We did not see these gifts. We believed ourselves cursed, for our flesh whithered and died in ways our science, for all its lofty heights, could not comprehend. Our lives became obsessed with death as we built and lived in the tombs we cursed the necessity of, dreading the day we would walk down into the crypts and never return. Our peers in that age did not suffer the same fate and so we grew to hate them as we grew to hate our own bodies. The curse was no longer just the cancers, no, it was every minute detail of that wretched biology, and when we're offered a cure for the disease that was life, we took it willingly."

"Only now, after so many millions of your years, do we start to realize our mistake. Of all the curses our ancient enemies influcted on us, the worst by far was that of self awareness. In those ancient glorious days I lived in a dream, incapable of seeing the harm I and others had wrought onto my being and that of my species. Now I cannot retreat into that dream anymore. I will never again feel the wind on my skin as I once did, the warmth of my partner and children being near. My lungs will never again inflate and no matter how loud I scream my death mask will stay perfectly placid. We won our immortality, but the cost was everything that made life worth living. "

"Well, almost everything."

- Excerpt transcribed from vox-recording of encounter between unknown xenoform and planetary defense forces, Mordum Tertius, Ultima Sector 7781591.m41

Security Signum: Vermillion

Additional status appended: Cognito Illicitus, by order of the office of Inquisitor Helynna Valeria, Ordo Xenos

Additional materials appended: pict-captures 1, 2a-d

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#mini painting #hobby #miniatures #warhammer #wh40k #warhammer 40k #necrontyr #necrons #flayed ones #spooktober #body horror #horror #necrontyr tuesday #kitbash #kill team