Tasteful Dickpic posted:

What's your reason for holding on to Doctrine: Loyalty (C2)?

quote:

From: Adj-Gov. Maxwell R. Peters
To: Project Trance Research Group
Subject: Re: Interested in your findings, observations, etc. of mindworm attack capabilities.
Date: MY 2147.11.20

Original Message posted:

Adj-Gov. Peters,

We've been given to understand that part of the larger "project" at Unity's Lantern is an experiment in cultivating human psychology and personality on a societal level to both maximize compatibility with the transparent society and to withstand mindworm attacks. This is of great interest to us for obvious reasons, doubly so given that a few years ago you dealt with the survivors of Squad Two's attack on a fungal tower.

Given this, we are reaching out to you for help with our own "Project Trance." We are working on a prototype defensive system based on psychological possibilities implied by the Gaians' deep neurology findings. We believe that a sort of specialized information warfare suite built into soldiers' surface suits could be configured to issue fast-acting audiovisual hypnotic stimuli. Basically, sounds and images calibrated to put the soldier into a state of calm or focused anger, or other useful emotional states.

The vagueness of what we hope to get out of this is why we're asking for your help. The ultimate goal is to make it so soldiers with the benefit of this Trance System will be better able to withstand mindworm attacks. Therefore, any information you have about known mindworm attacks, from the most common to even things you can only speculate about, would be helpful to our efforts. We'd ask that you simply provide a list of entries in the following format:


TYPE: The designated name of the attack based on its general operation on the mind.
WEAPONIZED: Whether or not our mindworm handlers can direct domesticated boils to induce this attack.
SEVERITY: A quantification of how debilitating the attack is, expressed as a ranking where lower numbers indicate a less debilitating attack. An attached program will ask for more specific information and return the appropriate number based on a complex calculation involving the average time it takes a survivor who experiences this attack to overcome its effects, psych exams of indirect observers who report associated symptoms, and casualty rates in any encounter where this type is experienced. Where this is not possible, we ask that you estimate.
MALIGNANCE: A quantification of how much long-term psychological trauma an attack causes, expressed as a ranking where lower numbers indicate a less traumatizing attack. Again, the program will run a calculation based on the number of survivors currently in therapy for issues related to the attack and how long it took survivors no longer in therapy to be cleared of serious psychological debilitation.
INDIRECT EFFECTS: Symptoms reported by audiences of recordings of hostile mindworms.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Reported experiences of those who have had direct contact with hostile mindworms.
NOTES: Other information you find important.


We imagine that you are familiar with all the "standard information" about mindworms and you may feel that you're telling us things we already know. That may be true in some cases, but please don't leave anything out just because it seems "too obvious." We need completion, and independent verification of details will help us make sense of all the information available.

We appreciate any and all help you can offer.

Greetings,

I was very excited by these same implications of Gaian deep neurology, and I am glad to see that the Hive is dedicating a research team to exploring it. Obviously, I am happy to help in any way I can.

I've put together a compendium of known, suspected, and potential mindworm psychological attack types based on a synthesis of Hive-wide research, speculation on some still unconfirmed reports, and my own observations. Much of this data has been adapted from materials I put together years ago as part of a public health/security education initiative. At the time, there was still a widespread misconception among the people of Unity's Lantern that fear is the only way mindworms incapacitate humans. People think that because it's the most common, but I felt it was dangerous for the public at large to be so ill-informed.

The more speculative entries are based largely on Unity Squad 2 reports. I'll copy over part of my summary of the awful aftermath as I observed it at the time, although doubtless your understanding of what happened has already long since leaped past me. Some of my notes reference these facts, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

quote:

Four out of every five of the soldiers who set out to scour the fungal thickets to the east are now dead and the survivors had suffered a large number of physical injuries, which is actually somewhat unusual. Typically there are very few non-lethal injuries in battle with mindworms because by the time they are able to physically injure a human, they are just about to kill. They do not damage any part of the human body except for those that provide direct access to the brain: orifices in the head, the eyes, the ears, sometimes the temples. In any of these cases, death almost always follows, although not swiftly. For those few who do survive a physical attack from a mindworm, wounds are extremely debilitating: blindness, deafness, loss of teeth or the tongue or much of the nose, and severe brain damage. These are, again, rare cases. Usually the damage for survivors is entirely psychological. There are also equally rare cases of accidental friendly fire injuries by victims of fear attacks who fire their weapons indiscriminately. For very different reasons, such incidents are also usually lethal.

This was not the case with Squad 2. Of the remnants, roughly one third had some physical injuries, and these mostly did not fit the usual profile of a mindworm attack: severe burns, lacerations, and, apparently, gunshot wounds. Something very strange happened in that battle which may signal a kind of paradigm shift in mindworm behavior.

Well, we all know that now. It's a bit embarrassing to read the ominous, dramatic tone here, but I can't really overstate how on edge everyone looking into the survivors' accounts were. We all felt a great looming dread whenever any of the survivors... went away into themselves.

Anyway, the file, formatted as you requested, is attached.

quote:

[File: "Mindworm Attack Types: Classification, Effects, and Treatment Challenges"]

TYPE: Discomfort
WEAPONIZED: N/A
SEVERITY: 0
MALIGNANCE: 0
INDIRECT EFFECTS: None noted.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Minor aches, hallucinations, or an itching sensation.
NOTES: This is not really an attack, per se, but an ongoing passive effect which all who directly contact hostile mindworms experience if they do not succumb to actual attacks. It seems to mostly be a defensive mechanism to stall or distract any humans that mindworms cannot incapacitate in order to increase the chances for success in attacking others or escaping combat.

TYPE: Fear
WEAPONIZED: Yes.
SEVERITY: 1
MALIGNANCE: 1
INDIRECT EFFECTS: General anxiety and a desire to stop watching.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Visions of deep-seated fears or forced recollection of frightening experiences leading to panic and instinctive (but typically ineffective) flight-or-fight responses.
NOTES: Long-term symptoms can be burdensome but are rarely debilitating. Some survivors develop phobia disorders or a lingering difficulty feeling safe.

TYPE: Intimidation
WEAPONIZED: Yes.
SEVERITY: 1 (Note: The program doesn't seem to allow for partial values as ranks, or else I am sure this would be lower.)
MALIGNANCE: 0
INDIRECT EFFECTS: Nonspecific anxiety.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Visions of generally terrifying, distressing, or surprising things. This attack is the stuff of horror movies rather than one's own nightmares, although with a much more visceral, direct impact because the visions seem fully real with no need for a "suspension of disbelief."
NOTES: Not an attack type used in the "wild." Rather, this is what is used in the last phase of Hive military training for the Mindworm Exposure Test. The attack is disturbing enough to potentially cause debilitation through freezing up or fleeing but not personally specific enough to need any long-term therapy. That, in fact, is why the military uses this for training, as "real" attacks have the serious potential to inflict lasting damage or casualties in training. It also provides a minimal "baseline" of psychological resilience: soldiers who cannot maintain composure against this simulated attack, the theory goes, will never withstand a real one.

TYPE: Doubt
WEAPONIZED: Yes.
SEVERITY: 1
MALIGNANCE: 2
INDIRECT EFFECTS: A feeling of concern about any recent stressor and a desire to leave in order to try resolving or confronting it.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Confusion to the point of distraction, obsessive thoughts about ideas or issues which the victim finds baffling or irresolvable.
NOTES: Doubt attacks have long-lasting negative effects on survivors' ability to form or maintain relationships, their job performance, their loyalty to the cause, and basically any social obligation requiring any degree of certainty, decisiveness, or trust.

TYPE: Despair
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 2
MALIGNANCE: 3
INDIRECT EFFECTS: Sadness or overwhelming apathy.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Feelings of complete hopelessness and futility. Victims rarely hallucinate anything. Some report being completely apathetic even as they saw worms crawling up their bodies. May induce sobbing fits that reduce the victim to a fetal position and suicidal ideation.
NOTES: This is a very rare attack type. For a time it was thought to be a variation on doubt or shame attacks, although there was no consensus which. (The ambiguity of its effects in this respect may be one reason why handlers have so much trouble directing domesticated mindworms to induce this attack despite being capable of the other two.) In some ways it may be the most fortunate type because it could account for a number of actual suicides during combat with mindworms, and most agree that a bullet to the brain is a better way to die. Unsurprisingly, long-term depression is a lingering effect.

TYPE: Shame
WEAPONIZED: Yes.
SEVERITY: 3
MALIGNANCE: 4
INDIRECT EFFECTS: Unspecific embarrassment and a desire to escape from the sight of others.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Forced recollection of memories of incidents which cause the victim to feel mortification or extreme guilt, often accompanied by hallucinations which exaggerate any particularly shameful "trigger details" of the memory.
NOTES: Possibly the most dangerous attack type we can positively confirm exists. Long-term trauma resembles despair attacks except that the shame involved in opening up about what happened makes any psychological treatment very difficult. Often, specialists in therapy for survivors of sexual assault find their expertise needed for these cases as the symptoms and reported feelings are disturbingly similar.

TYPE: Desire (Unconfirmed)
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 4 (?)
MALIGNANCE: 3 (?)
INDIRECT EFFECTS: Overwhelming hunger, thirst, or sexual frustration.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Hallucinatory visions of objects of physical craving such as food or solicitous attractive sex partners followed by exaggerated sensations of the pleasure of satiating these cravings.
NOTES: The existence of this attack type is only suspected on the basis of rare and abnormal indirect reactions and the testimony of two survivors of different attacks. One claims she was very hungry at the time of the attack and was incapacitated by imagined indulgence in a feast. The other said that he "fell into" a sexual fantasy dream-world before experiencing an orgasm several minutes long. Both these survivors have difficulty enjoying food and sex, respectively, as if reality is not matching up to the perfected fantasy they experienced. If it is real, it is potentially more dangerous than a shame attack because the victim enjoys the experience and does not want to fight it. The rarity of reports may reflect how effective it is or that it does not really exist.

TYPE: Wish-Fulfillment (Hypothesized)
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 5+ (?)
MALIGNANCE: 4+ (?)
INDIRECT EFFECTS: ?
DIRECT EFFECTS: Theoretically, victims become ensconced in an elaborate hallucinated dream-like narrative in which their goals are accomplished, or in which they overcome regrets by imagining a "do-over" where they make the choices they really wish they had originally, or where personal longings for escape or a certain lifestyle seem fulfilled.
NOTES: This is a speculative description of an attack type which may be possible and is based on the novel sophistication of the desire attack type. Rather than inducing carnal urges and cravings, it would seize and elaborate on more cerebral desires for success, a new beginning, escape, etc. which are psychologically satisfying for the personal imagined narrative the victim would experience rather than pleasurable sensations. The only evidence of its possible existence is a dubious report from Squad 2 of a soldier who broke free from a comrade dragging her to safety in order to run into a mind worm boil. She reportedly was acting as if she were at her own wedding, complaining of being taken from her walk down the aisle while in custody and supposedly saying "I do!" before being consumed. Nothing in any of the recorded footage of the battle confirms this story, however.

TYPE: Social Strife (Suspected)
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 6
MALIGNANCE: 7 (?)
INDIRECT EFFECTS: ?
DIRECT EFFECTS: Possibly strong general paranoia or specific distrust of/animosity towards one's comrades, or an artificial hostility to commanding officers. May manifest in a breakdown of military discipline or outright attacks by victims against their comrades.
NOTES: This description is based on the fact that Squad 2 suffered extensive injuries from what seem to have been human weaponry - from guns and knives to flamethrowers and grenades - although Squad 2 denied that there were any other human military forces in the area of operation. However, none of the survivors reported having experienced anything like the effects speculated about here. They in fact have great difficulty remembering anything that happened, and trying to force recollection can cause them to lapse into a coma. The very high Malignance score reflects that, although it's not clear what long term effects this has for survivors who don't closely examine their memories. They explained these injuries as having been friendly fire, although there was an unusually large number of such injuries. A very disturbing possibility because this would be the first attack that manipulates/subverts humans' relationships to each other. Interestingly, before Unity Squad 1 attacked a fungal tower, a commander apparently encouraged some of his troops to form close bonds with each other, which may have enabled some of the survivors to escape. Survivors there also had an abnormally large number of "friendly fire" injuries, but not as many as Squad 2.

TYPE: Social Delusion (Unconfirmed)
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 7+ (?)
MALIGNANCE: ?
INDIRECT EFFECTS: None.
DIRECT EFFECTS: Victims, as a group, are drawn into a shared illusory scenario, forgetting their real circumstances and interacting with each other as if at some normal social function.
NOTES: This is perhaps the least credible item on this list. The source is a video recording of unknown provenance which has been floating around the datalinks. It was not made by the Hive military and does not depict Hive soldiers. Instead, a body of soldiers with as-of-now unrecognized insignia are shown preparing to defend against a horrifyingly large boil of mindworms closing on their position. At a certain moment, the whole scene shifts and soldiers put down their weapons and begin talking to each other (in what sounds like Russian) as if they were all students in a study group. They are completely oblivious to their circumstances, including the worms crawling up their bodies and poised to strike at the eyes. The most chilling part of the recording is that the worms appear to delay the deathblow until all the human soldiers are helpless and surrounded before gouging into the brain in a single bloody, synchronized motion. This attack would appear to involve the worms not only manipulating human social interactions on a large scale, but coordinating their own attacks so as not to shatter the illusion. If real, it could be even more deadly than any other attack due to how the victims' interactions mutually reinforce the incapacitating illusion. However, we have absolutely no idea how reliable the source is. We do not know where it came from, but the humans depicted are clearly not Hive soldiers, nor do they look like members of any faction our diplomatic corps is aware of as of this writing. While the events depicted look realistic enough, it is possible that it could have been rendered with very advanced special effects technology. Additionally, observers of recordings of this attack report no indirect effects whatsoever. Possibly this is just how socially-coordinated attacks work (for example, they may be too subtle to affect the audience of a recording), but here we are corroborating a dubious source with a hypothetical possibility based on an unconfirmed theory. It seems likely (we can only hope) that the recording is a hoax or even a work of fiction. Nonetheless, it is included here for completion's sake.

TYPE: Puppeteer (Suspected)
WEAPONIZED: No.
SEVERITY: 8+
MALIGNANCE: 7 (?)
INDIRECT EFFECTS: ?
DIRECT EFFECTS: Victims may lose control of their bodies, which will be directed by the mindworms to attack other humans, increasing confusion and breaking morale in addition to the direct casualties this causes.
NOTES: This is an alternate explanation for the strange outcome of Squad 2's attack. It stems from the fact that some survivors described a feeling losing control or watching their actions as if an external observer or of simply being a passenger in their own bodies. This may simply reflect disassociation from false memories or something much, much worse. If it is possible for mindworms to take control of human beings and compel them to attack each other, that is another qualitative shift: they no longer need to influence emotions or use illusions, they can simply seize control. It would be the worst imaginable kind of attack, in my view.

[End File]

quote:

QUESTION: What are the Chairman's views on controlling breeding with the aim of increasing genetic diversity?

CHAIRMAN: About ten years ago, Doctor O’Connell—I think it was Criona? [Glances off-camera briefly.] Right. Criona O’Connell outlined the general Hive policy on eugenics just under a decade ago, which is plainly that I don’t endorse it. Maybe in some indefinite future we will have a comprehensive and worthwhile understanding of the human genetic code, and then we might revisit the issue. But now? Any such program would be nothing but blind speculation—blatant racism, couched in scientific language. And that’s without addressing the spectre of actually enforcing such a breeding program—mandated mate selection, classification of desirable and undesirable people, and all that. Until we can dispense with the genetic lottery entirely and uplift the entire people, Hive policy will not touch this issue.

QUESTION: Why do we tolerate the gays and the childless? They don’t contribute like everyone else does!

CHAIRMAN: Whether to take a stance on these and similar issues was actually a question that arose privately several decades ago, almost immediately following Planetfall. And I can see the logic, just as I can see the logic that the physically weak, the mentally dull, the emotionally stunted, or the socially inept “contribute” less than … who, exactly? An imaginary übermensch? Everyone contributes as they are able and is provided their needs, both of which vary. I myself have no children, and I doubt whomever submitted that question would doubt that I’ve done my share of contributing. If there’s a question about the points system or the ethical calculus that has refined it in recent years, then perhaps that’s a question for the entire Cadre?

Nietzschean posted:

Addendum to the current voting measures!



Options are presented in the order of the screenshot above (pick up to 2):
A.: Reject the trade.
B.: Take the trade.
C.: Offer Ethical Calculus
D.: Worship the Helix Fossil



This is what he's offering us! Probe Teams are spies that we can use to steal tech from the enemy, incite riots, steal money, infiltrate their datalinks (so we can see everything about them, like we can with the Spartans), or even take over an enemy base. Hologram Theatres are like Recreation Commons but more expensive and their effects stack, and The Virtual World is a secret project that lets us have a free Hologram Theatre in every base where we have a Network Node. Planned is an Economics social engineering choice which offers us +2 GROWTH (+20% population growth rate), +1 INDUSTRY (10% reduction in mineral costs), and no negatives at all because we're immune to its –2 EFFICIENCY penalty. Seeing as how we don't have any Economics plan right now, it'd be the first one we'd now have a chance to use. Librarians are specialist citizens. Rather than work a base square, they provide a flat +3 Labs bonus per Librarian; they still require food to be supported, though.

my dad posted:

Develop a design for, but do not produce, trance synthmetal (crawler) formers. In case of mindworms posing an imminent threat to exposed formers, those at risk can be rapidly upgraded to this design to give them a chance to survive the attack. (people can feel free do add their fluff about this, I imagine some sort of modular design thing) Having sensor grid coverage would be of immense help to this plan, too.

I'd suggest a similar thing for colony pods, but seriously, they need an escort anyway, so what's the point?

Nietzschean posted:

The segment concludes with selection of questions submitted by various children in Hive settlements, which included such weighty questions as the Chairman’s favourite character from Viking and the Hedgehogs.

my dad posted:

Rename base: Deep Authority

Nietzschean posted:

AJ_Impy posted:

The votes of the People's Eyrie Adjunct-Governorate are as follows.

Contact Miriam: Yea. If anyone else kept their pod sane, reasonable and rational, it will be the Unity's Psych-Chaplain.
Rename base: Seed of Aspiration. It should be our hope that what we plant will grow to be of great benefit to all.
Renovate garrisons: Tranceguard. Their principle is to protect and defend. Should we need offensive forces, we should produce them as needed, but offensive action is only palatable n order to better defend ourselves. Let us not belie our intent.
Research priorities, in order: Discover, Build, Explore.
Foreign policy: Surround and contain. As with Morgan, so with others. Accept friendship and pacts but be wary of ulterior motives.
Housekeeping:The stated plan is approved and affirmed. The plan is sufficient for the time being, so we enact it diligently.

Montegoraon posted:

It feels like there ought to be more to the Human Genome Project than just mapping what various genes do. Since DNA is not so much a blueprint as it is a compressed data file, a sensible next step would be to build a supercomputer capable of decompressing that file, giving a complete simulation of a human body, though not accounting for environmental factors.

GunnerJ posted:

Renovate Garrisons: I don't understand the options.

GunnerJ posted:

Feedback: Just out of curiosity, do you still want stuff related to war plans and the Morganites, etc. as mentioned in part one of the update?

GunnerJ posted:

Other stuff: I know you said you can't take recommendations on new bases, but that isthmus on the other end of the inland sea from Unity's Lantern looks tasty if the water beyond it connects to a larger body. A base there could be another choke-point/canal and turn the sea into a passageway. But it is deffo kind of an out-there possibility.

Nietzschean posted:

Mister "my dad," if that is your real name, would you care to address rumours that you're actually a decepticon?

Nietzschean posted:

Options are to turn Scout Patrols into Laser Infantry, to turn Scout Patrols into Trance Synthmetal Sentinels (possibly renamed to Tranceguards), or to Keep existing Scout Patrols as they are and find some other use for our base production queues.

quote:

Noted.

GunnerJ posted:

Not that I'm going to do this, but if I asked for a Colony Pod to be queued up at Unity's Lantern, would I be able to direct where it deploys a new base? This actually has a lot of narrative implications because it is one thing to delegate authority of a single city to a lieutenant and quite another for that lieutenant to act as if his city were effectively the capital of an offshoot society with its own expansion imperatives. Dunno if you've said anything about this but it seems like it would make sense if Adjunct-Governors could not even request colony pods, leaving expansion of the Hive overall at Yang's discretion.

Nietzschean posted:

You can somewhat see an example of that in how the Formers from PE did some stuff to directly benefit PE, but then wandered off to go do other things for a while rather than continue to make improvements that wouldn't be useful for several years or decades due to population constraints.

Nietzschean posted:

I agree that it makes more sense in the narrative that Adjunct-Governors' authority ends with their own base rather than some kind of extended feudal structure, and I'd imagine that from time to time—behind the scenes—even in the mostly-autonomous bases there would be mandates from central command to do this or that because the Hive overall needs more of a particular widget or whatever. You can somewhat see an example of that in how the Formers from PE did some stuff to directly benefit PE, but then wandered off to go do other things for a while rather than continue to make improvements that wouldn't be useful for several years or decades due to population constraints. I'd hitherto just not presumed to actually disrupt the production queues of PE or UL, so as not to have promised X and then delivered Y; but, now that you mention it, especially given UL's high potential growth rate it would be far more efficient to produce colony pods there and send them out to the nearby areas then to produce them in one of the primary cluster bases and then ship them over. Would you be cool with that?

quote:

Hive military forces conform to a modified version of the rank structure and unit organization of the United Nations Security Force (UNSF), which in turn drew its design from the classification codes of the defunct North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of old Earth.

Each of the independent infantry units thus far known as “Squads” consists of 107 soldiers: a Company Commander (CO), typically a Captain (CPT/OF-2), who commands the unit; an Executive Officer (XO), typically a First Lieutenant (1LT/OF-1), who serves as second-in-command to the Company Commander; a First Sergeant (1SG/OR-8), who assists the Company Commander; a Battlefield Surgeon, a medical officer responsible for unit health; an Armory Sergeant, responsible for maintaining squad equipment and weapons; a Supply Sergeant, responsible for maintaining miscellaneous squad supplies; a Mess Sergeant, responsible for coordinating meal preparation; a Readiness Sergeant, responsible for coordinating training and education; and three platoons of 33 soldiers each, typically designated first, second, and third.

Each platoon is composed of 33 soldiers: a Platoon Leader (PL), typically a Second Lieutenant (2LT/OF-1), who commands the unit; a Platoon Sergeant (PSG), typically a Sergeant First Class (SFC/OR-7), who assists the Platoon Leader; a Platoon Forward Observer (FO); two Telecommunications Operators (TCO); a field medic (FM); and three sections of nine soldiers each, typically designated first, second, and third.

Each section is composed of nine soldiers: a Section Leader (SL), typically a Staff Sergeant (SSG/OR-6), armed with a 5.56mm UNSF assault rifle and equipped with a communication and navigation suite, who leads the section and provides overwatch to her subordinate fireteams; and two fireteams of four soldiers each, typically designated alpha and bravo. Each fireteam is composed of four soldiers: a Team Leader (TL), typically a Sergeant (SGT/OR-5) or Corporal (CPL/OR-4), armed with a 5.56mm UNSF assault rifle with an underslung 20mm single-shot incendiary grenade launcher and equipped with a communication and navigation suite, who provides tactical leadership for the fireteam and acts as the designated grenadier; a Designated Gunner (DG), typically a Corporal or Private First Class (PFC/OR-3), armed with either a standard flamegun or other crew-served heavy weapon (7.62mm medium machine gun, laser cannon, etc.) and equipped with a secondary communication suite, who provides suppression fire and serves as second-in-command to the Team Leader; an Assistant Gunner (AG), typically a Private First Class or Private (PVT/OR-2), armed with either a 5.56mm UNSF assault rifle or secondary heavy weapon and equipped with extra ammunition for the fireteam; and a Designated Rifleman (DR), typically a Private (PVT/OR-1), armed with a 7.62mm UNSF battle rifle, who serves as a forward scout for the fireteam.

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

Pree asma, forgive me for this pedantry I am about to inflict. What I am about to tell you is not knowledge you should feel bad for not having, and I share it because I think you will enjoy learning it, not out of any attempt to chastise.

In your previous post you make reference to a '7.62mm UNSF assault rifle'. The 7.62x51mm NATO round is not generally used with assault rifles; it's a fatter, more powerful round, associated with semi-automatic 'battle rifles', sniper rifles, and medium machine guns. The NATO round loaded in the M16 and similar light assault rifles is the 5.56x45mm, which is lighter but comparably lethal versus people, and easier to carry in bulk.

the more u kno

Nietzschean posted:

Another thought was the recoil and weight that a fatter slug has in full-auto is less of a concern with future-tech small arms and envirosuits which I assume we're using. I've never had the pleasure of rucking around with an infantry loadout in real life (I was a squid), so maybe this is something I'm writing off more easily than I should be?

Feedback appreciated.

Yarville posted:

Even with future-tech recoil dampening, I doubt your average battle/assault rifle is going to be fired on full auto very often, if it even has that capability. If you're using NATO for reference, the M16A4s used by the US military only fire on single shot or 3 round burst, mostly due to accuracy concerns. Any man portable full-auto capabilities at the squad level is going to come from either light machine guns shooting a 5.56 (for us, it's the SAW, which I carry) or a medium machine gun shooting a 7.62 (like the M240).

As someone who who has had the unfortunate pleasure of carrying an infantry loadout, 5.56 is definitely more portable and is the NATO standard. That said, it's really not that big of a deal and your reasoning is sound, especially if we're working with future tech.

Nietzschean posted:

words

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

Your reasoning is sensible and interesting. I can think of several reasons that high-power cartridges might become popular again and a lot of them seem like they'd apply here. I'm glad I raised the issue and elicited this commentary! Okay done brown nosing

Nietzschean posted:

Thanks for this. I'll at the very least standardize the caliber to the type of rifle. Another question: what would be the advantage of battle rifles supported by a light machine gun vs assault rifles supported by a medium machine gun? Why would you want one versus the other? I'm assuming the medium machine gun makes more sense as a "heavy weapon," for use against human enemies as a counterpart to the flameguns used against mindworms. Correct me if I'm wrong!

e: Updated the post in question, btw.

quote:

Personal log, Criona O'Connell
Uploaded to Hive intranet at 0:00 Hive Standard Time, MY 2150

I stare in the mirror at a face that is not my own.

Such is the nature of the Process. Not restorative, but transformative. Biologically speaking, the Process remakes you into a genetic chimera: parts of your body are still built from your original genetic structure, but the rest is a stitched-together Frankenstein's monster of genetic structure. Your brain is the only truly original part of your body left, re-sleeved into a new host body in its biological mid-twenties, the end of maturation and significant body change. My face is a close facsimile of who I used to look like, and if you saw me now standing next to my original mid-twenties self you'd think us sisters. My eyes are darker, hair lighter, mouth and nose subtly wrong. Close, but not my original face. The chimeric nature of the Process is why it requires cells harvested from the human body at or shortly before death. I'm no doctor, I don't pretend to understand how exactly it works, but there's no denying how ghoulish the Process is. Maybe not ghoulish, but vampiric. There's a thought for you: vampires never actually existed until we invented them, people who steal the blood of the living to fuel their own youth. The Process even comes with the standard procreative clause: the Process renders women sterile.

Except it's not youth, not really. I look very similar indeed to the young Irishwoman who taught science and math to children, who enjoyed boxing at the local gym on the weekends and a good stout at the pub after a long day teaching. A young woman who never left Earth's surface, she was well into her thirties when Belfast fell and she was sent to the Unity program.

It's the eyes. They're how you can tell the Advisors who have taken the Process. For all that they're biologically young they are the eyes of old men and women, the dwindling Enochs and Methusalehs and wizened old mountaintop hermits. Most of the Terrans are dead now, those who chose to take the Process are a distinct minority among our peers. Our friends wither and die, becoming one with the Hive in death. We endure and we press on, old minds and old souls in fresh young bodies. I was asked why I did it, by a lovely young woman I met in the gym yesterday. Hivers like to stay fit, and I can still show the Planetborn a few tricks in the boxing ring. And elsewhere, in retrospect that was rather odd foreplay. It was a good question, though. Chloe is Planetborn, and the idea of rejuvenation and staying in mortal flesh rather than becoming one with something greater perturbed her.

I think the answer comes down to insanity, and to drive. I undertook the Process because I feel my work on Planet is unfinished. How could I pass into paradise when I've barely scratched the surface of Planet's mysteries? Let me labor a while longer, Lord, let me work on the riddles You placed before us. One of the great psychological dangers of longevity, Earth thinkers long theorized, is obsession. The Process doesn't affect the brain directly, and my memory remains a devouring fog. I write so much in part simply to remind myself of my past and who I am, encoding memory into a form longer lasting than an aging brain's biochemistry. As neurons wither, the mind narrows, choosing what to discard and what to keep. Do I really need to remember how to speak and write French? I was fluent once, but now when I see that tongue written I have only a nagging sense that I've lost something. The Process is imperfect, I told Chloe. The brain is a marvelous thing and we've learned how to take good care of it, but even the supreme achievement of biological evolution on Earth wears down in time. The only real limit on the Process - and it's not a trivial limit - is the brain and the mind it holds. When this body begins to fade, I will probably not be able to do it again due to simple neural degradation.

Chloe thought that was funny, sleeping with a woman old enough to be her great-grandmother. I'm not really a Hiver, she said. Useful, loyal, productive, but I don't fit in like the Planetborn Hivers. I'm still a stranger to this society for all that I helped build it. It's a subtle madness, not like the would-be philosophers and demagogues. A beautiful pariah, she said, well on my way to becoming one of the mad oracles from Earth myth.

Admire those who say they seek the truth, I told her. Run like hell from those who say they've found it.

I had thought that would be the end of it, a night of stolen companionship and simple physical need, but Chloe invited me to speak at the Feeding Bay this morning, to tell a few stories of Earth to the day's first shift as they ate breakfast. We all have access to every scrap of information we brought with us, yes, and surveillance here is complete and similarly available, but something I didn't appreciate until this morning was the difference between reading about Earth in a textbook and hearing someone speak who had lived it. Who was there, and can tell you all the things recorded pictures and words can't. I've never been much of a public speaker, but it felt like a duty. A duty as one of the dwindling people born and raised on Earth. I'm still not certified by the doctors to resume normal duties while the Process works itself out, so I had to find something to do.

More than just history, though, I ended up telling the morning shift the story of King Arthur, a tale I brought with me from the merry old dead and buried United Kingdom. We called it the Matter of Britain, I told them, a tale mostly fabricated to make the English feel better about themselves and lay claim to a grand and mystical legacy. That got some laughter, Hivers tend to be forward-thinking; we know we're here to build something new, not wallow in past glories. Long story short, I focused on Camelot. Mythical Camelot represented an ideal, precisely which ideals varied depending on the circumstance and agenda of the person telling the story. The idea, though, was always clear: a romantic past golden age ruled by King Arthur, the very best of men. The very best, yet also profoundly flawed I noted to the crowd, and the flaws of men undid the utopia.

I asked them what lesson we in the Hive today could draw from Camelot, King Arthur, and his Knights of the Round Table. I got a lot of answers, but the one I like best is the fallacy of thinking our best days are behind us. It's a common strain throughout human history: past ages of perfection when everything was better, when the gods walked the land, when men lived forever and wielded magic, and so on and so forth. For the most part, it's just a large-scale cultural version of yammering about the good old days and those darn kids these days. We in the Hive know better. We have no myth of Camelot. We know perfectly well where we came from and that we've come here to build something better than past eras, because those past eras were lovely for most people.

It's not, mind, that we're erasing the past or forgetting it. But we're here to make something new, and that is perhaps my role and that of other Terrans. We're the witnesses, those who can tell you what no security camera can. Or perhaps we should start teaching others while we can. Immortality is a pretty dream, but another fifty or sixty years is all I can get right now.

RiotGearEpsilon posted:

Y'all are ungenerous and discourteous! But I suppose Lal has been a dick... Still, is that any reason to deny the great masses of his citizenry their heartfelt ambitions of structural political participation?