Just doing a little research for The Squeaker War. Not sure how much of it will get used since I only have the vaguest idea what direction I’m going with that story.
A retrospective of the space shuttle program.
Von Braun space station from 1956…
Super Heavy Lift Rocket? 10x more powerful than the Saturn V?
An older video by Isaac Arthur on the potential impact of fusion for human civilization. While worth the 20min watch time.
Too funny not to share.
Sounds like a plan worth trusting.
Part Two of the Squeaker War
Part One Here The Mechanics of Creation
The usual bunch of protesters were gathered outside the Whitehouse. Although their signs and chants had changed from “Punch all Nazis!” and “Mothers against madmen.” to “Spacerats go home!” “Earth for Earthlings” And the General’s personal favourite “Hell no! Xenos go!” Considering that the Jubi contact team had left the star system several days ago just added to the absurd humor of the situation.
The Jubi’s naive insistence on publicly declaring their arrival and intentions had not gone over too well with the general public. Washington in particular had gone into what amounted to one enormous brain spasm; which Lewis had to admit made him like the strange little aliens even more.
He was just taking an evening stroll and trying to get the taste of Pentagon coffee out of his mouth when his smartphone rang.
Lewis grabbed the phone he normally used for his day to day business. Only to realize that it was his other more private phone that was ringing. The general muttered to himself but with the small chance that the President or one of the Joint Chiefs was calling he really did have to take this call.
“Lewis here, who’s calling?”
“General Lewis, this is Jake Osborne with Cyberpatriot News. Is there any chance you’d be willing to do an interview about our new surprisingly fuzzy alien overlords?”
“No Jake and fuck you for asking,” The general answered instinctively while he wondered how the infamous conspiracy nut radio host had gotten this number.
“What do you say about the rumors that the Jubi are just here to steal our water?” Osborne asked, clearly not getting the hint.
“Water is one of the most common chemicals in the universe, Jake,” Lewis sputtered stunned by the sheer stupidity of the question. “If your listeners are worried about aliens coming to Earth and stealing our water I’d suggest that you double check the ingredient list on those brainpower pills you keep selling.”
“So they’re not after our natural resources,” Osborne stated.
“Earth has no unique resources…” Lewis replied.
“Except us and our children,” Osborne shot back hysterically. “The aliens want our children!”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Jake.” Lewis growled.
“So human resources or…”
“Strategic geographic location like a canal or a strait.” Lewis answered. “But that’s pure speculation. The Jubi are offering us very good terms to join their proposed alliance.”
“Alliance against who?” Osborne asked. It was a logical question. Crazy or not Jake Osborne hadn’t gotten where he had without being a very smart man.
“They haven’t told us,” Lewis conceded.
“So they want something on or near Earth?” Osborne said following the logic. Again for all his faults Osborne was a very smart man.
“They seemed very interested in the gas giants and their orbital resonances…” Lewis answered puzzling over the question himself.
Ah, yes Saturn! The source of the Reptilian transmissions.” Osborne said as if the idea has just snapped into his mind, solving a great mystery.
“There are no goddamned Reptilians!” Lewis bellowed loud enough to cause a jogger to stop, stare and decide to start jogging in the other direction. This was why he hated Osborne and his ilk. One moment you were having an intelligent conversation and the next people started ranting about bankers and dentists committing child sacrifice and collecting dark energy to power their crystal pyramids.
“What if there were Reptilians?” Osborne said as if this was great revelation.
“Then we’d better damn well take the Jubi’s offer Jake,” Lewis snarled. “Because if Earth really is controlled by trans-dimensional shapeshifting aliens who eat children’s souls we’re gonna need all the help we can get to kick those scaly bastards the fuck off our planet!”
“Thanks for your time General and as one patriot to another God bless you.” The radio host said with at least a sliver of sincerity. Then he ended the call.
Lewis stood motionless for a moment and then stared aimlessly at his phone. Then he realized that he had just let that snake oil salesman Osborne trick him into giving an interview… and one with several very juicy mimetic soundbites perfect for tonight’s feature broadcast.
Patrick Lewis had long treated profanity as an artform. For next several minutes he gave the pigeons and bureaucrats of Washington DC. a virtuoso performance that only a true master of the art could unleash.
Part Three Here Eyes of the Emperor
Nuff said.
You can keep your meerkats and otters.
I know what my spirit animal is.
Part One of the Squeaker War
The jubi typed furiously into the tiny keyboard and waited for the text to speech software to translate. If not for the seriousness of the conversation the sight of the tiny baby sloth looking alien would have been quite adorable.
“The entity you humans refer to as God is capable of
directly tapping into zero point energy,
converting that energy into matter at no least than 99.98% efficiency.
then shaping said matter into whatever complex form He chooses to.
This whole process takes nanoseconds.”
General Lewis looked very nervously at Commander Hardin, “Hmm probably shouldn’t have skipped church last Sunday, then.”
The jubi replied with a little squeak-laugh before typing another sentence.
“and understand gentlemen that this is God’s minimum observed capability.”
Commander Hardin felt the sudden urge for a second glass of whiskey, “So you saying that not only does God exist but that you race has communicated with Him?”
“We try to maintain diplomatic relations with the various Cosmic powers.” came the reply. “Thankfully most such powers consider us beneath their notice.”
The Spaceforce general thought for a minute. “So if God exists, what about Satan?”
The alien jerked slightly and actually hesitated before answering. That alone was unusual. Jubi always answered questions quickly and always seemed to be two or three steps ahead of any human who was talking to them.
“Sadly I’m not familiar enough with human theology to directly answer that question. However I can think of at least three alien races that might match your description of fallen angels.”
The General gave a booming laugh in response. “And you want our help against these space demons?”
The alien honked a negative and then began typing.
“No. Distant enemies. Future threat. Humans not ready. Need bigger alliance anyway. Very big alliance.”
“Like an alliance with God?” Commander Hardin gasped. “How did you guys find us anyway?”
The tiny alien just started laughing.
Lewis and Hardin just stared at each other in alarm. What were they going to tell the president?
Baby sloths are super adorable. Plus was getting so tired of grey humanoid aliens.
Part Two Here: Truth, Lies, More Truth and Insanity
The latest episode of Isaac Arthur‘s Outward Bound series. And this one definitely thinks outside the box as it discusses colonizing the Ice giants of Uranus and Nepture. Planets you wouldn’t normally think could be colonized. [28 mins]
This episode is definitely about thinking big. The concept of chandelier cities hanging down from a orbital ring or ice shell is something worth exploring and food for thought.
There is a game on sale for $1.14
I have exactly $1.12 in my steam account.
Going to have to wait until tomorrow.
Until then… so much pain.
Update: Downloading now…
The game is Pacific Storm Allied. Which has mixed reviews but I’m really craving a P.T.O. like game right now and for that price (on sale until Sept 24th) it’s worth a shot.
This the 420 Anime-Right interpretation of events but well worth sharing. [18 mins]
I might still need to do my own piece of this whole incident but I’m still holding an awful lot of bitterness about the way Jon Del Arroz (a friend of this blog) was treated and I want to wait until more of that dissipates.
What I suspected earlier and which has become crystal clear is that what became ComicsGate and what I guess we’ll be calling Alt-Comics (for lack of an accepted term) are two separate movements that were happening simultaneously.
ComicsGate seeks to force Marvel and DC to reform and desperately wants the 1990’s era comics back. They are not opposed to SJWs per se but rather the damage that SJWs cause.
Alt-Comics writes off the entire mainstream comics industry as a loss and seeks to build anew. SJWs are actively recognised as the threat that they are ands no quarter will be given should they be encountered.
A third movement seems to be forming around the indie company Alterna Comics and their way of doing things. However Alterna is less about politics and more about seeking gaps in the market.
Jon’s role was to act as a diplomat between the two/three groups and try to bring everyone to together. Attacking a diplomat is a serious taboo which is why the attacks on him caused so much outrage among people who were on the outskirts of this whole thing.
I’m going to hold my tongue on saying anything more here.
Thankfully things have calmed down enough that we all can at least focus on moving forward.
—Wolfman Out—
Related:
An older post were I muse about the interrelations between the two movements.
A discussion about the possible future models for the comics industry.
Just a quick reposting of some of the science fiction related art I’ve been saving.
Again most of these are taken from the 70’s Sci-fi Art account on Twitter.
Besides I don’t really keep too close track of what a picture is from. I’ve just been saving them because it seems like the right thing to do.
Because sometimes you have to meme.
Highly problematic.
Interesting. When everybody thinks of Great Britain the Welsh kind of get tossed in as an afterthought.
Of Wolves and Men 