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May 5, 2021 23:53
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:29 |
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Uranium Phoenix posted:Andromeda, once 2.5 million light years distant In present, sorry.
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May 6, 2021 00:09
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Cavern 1775/1800 Words Rising over the ridge, the drone kicked up a small amount of silt from its twin fans as it advanced towards the canyon ahead. It’s pilot three miles above noted this on the rear facing camera, but dismissed it as he pushed forward towards the sudden drop ahead. Previous surveys of the area had said this was just a dip in ocean floor, but the pilot had seen some odd echoes and blurriness that suggested to him that there was more to it. An outcropping or ledge near the top of the canyon could easily conceal interesting topological features. Most likely there was nothing in the depths but some glow in the dark fish, or maybe a giant squid but the pilot felt it was important to have an accurate scan. The drone had fairly sophisticated programming for situations such as this. A drone that could survive several miles under the ocean was expensive, and the engineers who built it wanted to be sure it could do its job and return even if direct control was lost. Thankfully one of the engineers had worked on Roombas before, and the collision avoidance and return software was easy to modify. As it reached the edge, the sonar mounted in it’s nose returned data that suggested there was a more to the canyon than initially thought, and the pilot sent the drone in, slowly descending while spinning. About thirty feet down, the drone’s sonar suddenly went wild, returning all sorts of small objects floating in a gap underneath what the pilot now knew was an overhang. What the small objects were was still up in the air, but at least he’d found something. The hard part was going to be figuring out what it was, and if he could get something out of it. The drone automatically began to hover in place now that the pilot was no longer telling it to move, it’s gyroscope holding it even though there was a weak current inside the canyon. The pilot made some minor adjustments to the drone’s position, getting a better angle for the equipment on board the drone. This deep in the ocean the infrared camera gave little information beyond that it was warmer inside the canyon than out, and it seemed to increas the deeper the drone looked. Sonar only showed a swarm of small objects and noise, so the pilot decided to turn on the light and visual camera, risking driving away any living creatures for a glimpse further in. Initially the pilot thought he had lost the signal to the drone, but after a moment he realized that what he thought was colorful static was in fact an almost hypnotic pattern of swirling particles, cascading in and around each other in a whirl of scintillation. He stared at it for a few seconds, then toggled the switch to extend the sample collection arm on the drone. The only way to determine if there was more to canyon than this small eddy current of particles was to send the drone in, but he didn’t want to just collide with the side of the canyon. Using the arm like a blind man’s cane was generally considered the safest way to advance when visibility was limited, and the drone had been designed to lose the arm if necessary. He began to inch the drone forward, waiting for the tell tale signs of damage or solid objects impacting the arm. Slight resistance was felt as the drone advanced, but this was attributed to the cloud of particles. He managed to advance the drone about a hundred feet, when the camera suddenly cleared and gave a breathtaking view. The canyon was not really a canyon, more like an entrance into a giant cavern, filled with bioluminescent plants and fish that even to his barely trained eyes were undiscovered species. He immediately toggled the light, but even without it the camera had more than sufficient light to examine the cavern. Using the sonar, he managed to find the cavern was almost as large as a college football stadium with many other exits. Moving further into the cavern, the drone’s camera began to pick up more detail on the small creatures. They appeared less monstrous than the usual deep sea fish people learn about. They looked almost like someone had taken regular fish, made them bioluminescent, and dumped them four miles under the sea in some out of the way place. As the drone drifted forward, the infrared camera started to show a much warmer section at the back of the cavern, behind what appeared to be a low wall. Seeing that, the pilot went back and noted that it was almost body temperature inside the cavern but began to drop immediately on exiting. This temperature gradient was responsible for the odd swirling currents outside. Slowly gliding forward inside the cavern, the pilot approached the low wall at the other side of the cavern. Along the way he was occasionally forced to glide around schools of fish that were lazily making their way around the cavern. Closer to the wall, a small warning light started to flash on the drone controls. The thermal camera had picked up a significant heat source nearby and was warning him to be wary. The drone was well built, but there were thermal vents all over the ocean and some reached temperatures high enough to damage parts of the drone. To get a better look at the other side of the wall, the pilot stopped the drone and began to move it upwards to get a proper angle. When he did so, he saw the source of the warning. There was a small thermal vent on the other side of the low wall, just big enough that it could warm the cavern but not so big that it would kill any of the animals and plants inside it. Making a note of it’s location, the pilot decided to investigate the other possible exits out of the cavern. Approaching the first, it was only an indentation into the rock that was covered with the brightly glowing plants. The second was the same, while the third held an additional indentation at the bottom that almost resembled a bird’s nest made of stone. What looked like small eggs but could have been small round stones completed the effect, and the pilot saved a still picture of it just for his own. Sometimes the depths of the ocean gave some odd situations and he liked to keep memories in case he didn’t get back down here. He moved onto the third and 4th, which were similar to the first two, but the fifth gave him pause. The rest of the indentations all were covered in a variety of glowing plants, but this one was different. It was shaped like a large egg, more than large enough to accommodate the drone if he chose to enter. However, the plants reached to the very lip of the opening and stopped as if cut off with a razor. The thermal imaging camera showed no data, and when he turned on the light whatever was inside seemed to almost swallow it with no reflection about three feet in. Even sonar didn’t give much of an answer, flickering between empty void and solid object just a few feet in. Deciding to return to this one, the drone pilot sent the drone on a path that would accurately map the rest of the cavern, making sure to get images of each of the different animals and plants it saw. It’s arm was capable of grabbing samples, but the sample containers had been left off for this outing as it was originally a mapping expedition. The pilot had no worries about someone returning, this cavern was probably someone’s doctoral thesis. Now that the drone had examined the rest of the cavern, the pilot sent it smoothly back to the unknown indent in the wall. The pilot still was unsure what was inside the space, sonar, thermal, none of the instruments showed anything conclusive. The pilot decided to risk it. Extending the collection arm once more, he advanced the drone forward slowly. As soon as the arm bumped into the darkness at the back of the cave, the camera began to spin wildly and multiple warning lights started flashing on the control screen. The pilot let go of the controls, allowing the drones own programming, combined with it’s internal gyroscope to level it out while he read through the warning lights and replayed the video to try and figure out what had happened. The video was less than helpful, it looked more like someone had left the video running on a phone and then dropped it. The drone had been spun around wildly in all three dimensions, and even slowed down the best he could tell was that something had come out of the indentation, but whether it was some new creature, or just a natural phenomenon like the thermal vents was still unknown. The collection arm was mangled, but the rest of the drone still functioned. As soon as he had control, he spun the drone around, searching the cavern to find what had left the indentation. His initial search was directly behind where the drone had been, but there was no indication that any rock or cavern wall had exploded outward. He began a slow circle of the cavern and found nothing new until he reached the indentation containing the bird’s nest type formation inside of it. Now, to the drone’s sensors it had the same blank and confusing look from the previous indentation. Sonar was again sketchy, and the plants around the edges were now cut off. The pilot checked the tape, and there had definitely been a more ragged edge to the plant life when he had first examined it, though it had been fairly sparse compared to the others. Slowly moving towards the indentation, suddenly the blank spot appeared to rear up and weave threateningly towards the drone. He backed the drone slowly away towards the center of the cavern, and the spot now settled back to immobility, clearly feeling less threatened now that the drone was moving away. Glancing at the drone’s control board once more, the pilot noted there was sufficient battery life to recover the drone. Noting this cavern for the researchers he worked for, he piloted the drone back out through the entrance. As soon as it was clear of the cavern, he set it to return on auto pilot and began filling out the paperwork to explain the damage.
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May 10, 2021 00:38
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The little bell attached to the door rang it’s little “deedle deedle dee” as Nildar the Bonesmith walked through the door of the Shogan’s Helping Hand, hoping to pick up some new farmhands. He was hoping to put another few rooms on his house, as his wife Kecilia the Dread had informed him the week previous that they were expecting their first little one. With a few extra hands to work the fields, Nildar would have some extra time to help out his wife and get a nursery built before the winter. The chemical smell was nothing new to Nildar, and it brought back a lot of good memories for him. Stopping off at the store with his grampa as a child, and getting some candy from the zombie Shogan kept near the front as an advertisement of his wares. His parents had been a great necromancer team and had been drafted in one of the previous Dread Lord’s wars. Nildar spent a lot of time with his grandparents when he was a lad as a consequence. “How goes it?” Shogan asked, stepping out of the back room, wiping his hands on a cloth. “How’s the missus?” “Fine, fine,” Nildar replied. “She keeps craving pickles for some reason, but I hear things like that happen. Just trying to keep her happy for now. How’s the supply lately?” “Well, that I’m none too happy about. Hope you weren’t looking for anything in particular, Archons of the Dread Lord stopped by just yesterday, grabbed most of what I had. Even the stuff that wasn’t so great for combat. Maybe this one is actually trying to fix some things, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” “Dread Lords, I swear. We been through five in the past seven years, and it’s always the same. Grabbing every usable corpse, never a thought to what the rest of us need.” Seeing Shogan’s expression, he quickly added “Not that I’m saying the Dread Lord’s work isn’t important, but he’s not gonna have any soldiers left if the rest of us can’t get anything done.” “Well, be that as it may. What you looking for? I got some that didn’t get requisitioned. Got a few good skeleton’s I know you like working with, got a few of them new fangled zombies from the factory up in Capitol, and I know you don’t like ‘em but I do got a few of them small ones. Now, don’t go getting upset, I’m not the biggest fan of ‘em either, but sometimes they come in handy for a few people around town. I know the sewers wouldn’t be have as safe as they are without something that can sneak in and do some scouting, find those bastard heroes that keep coming by.” “Definitely not the little ones, bad luck to have one of those with Kecilia as she is. Skeleton’s might do, what about those new-fangled ones? Those the ones I heard about that you can’t modify or fix yourself? I been using the same mending spells my grampa’s grampa used, they been good enough for them they’re good enough for me. No gaps whatsoever when you put an arm back on. “ “Yeah, those are the ones I got right now. I swear, those factory bastards up in Capitol convince a Dread Lord they’ll pay more taxes if they get the right to force everyone else to pay to fix up what’s already been paid for, and then we get a new Dread Lord and they just pretend like that wasn’t the deal all along. Then our taxes go up, and those bastards just keep swimming in money. Heard there was a guy up north tried to fight it, they got an Archon to run up there and now he’s working off the fine in one of the factories. Didn’t even give him the chance to explain himself, just BAM” and Shogan slapped his hand on the counter, “right off to the factory. Sad as hell.” “Well, in that case gently caress ‘em. I ain’t paying for that. Let me see the skeletons, see if they can do what I need. Kecilia really wants that nursery, no way she’s gonna care if the Dread Lord is scooping up all the local bodies.” Shogan marched out the skeletons, put them through their paces. Thankfully the current Dread Lord wasn’t a fan of skeleton’s in his armies, said they were too easy to break and made too much noise when they were marching. Dread Lords were always too busy looking for showy armies, they forgot the basics. Out here in the west of the Dread Empire showy was a lot less important than functional. Nildar had learned the proper spells and rites to strengthen the bones and tendons that tied a skeleton together into a working stiff. His grampa had been a master at it, even better than his mother and he had watched him every day when he was growing up. Once he was done, short of a catapult stone landing on it these would keep going without stopping. They would suffice, keeping the crops clean of bugs and weeds, mending fences, and even helping out some with the home building. They weren’t pretty, but his farm was a ways from town and it’s not like he needed to impress Gilmead next door. Picking up a few extra components he’d need for the strengthening rituals, and on a whim a few of the pickles Shogan kept by the counter Nildar dropped gold on the counter, Shogan performed the brief ritual needed to give Nildar control skeletons and then he headed out. “See you next week,” Nildar said. “And if you get something good that’d do for a housecleaner, save it for me will you?” “I’ll try,” Shogan said. “Dread Lord is scooping up pretty much everything these days, but maybe I’ll get lucky. Say hi to the missus for me, I’m sure my wife will want to talk to her before too long. The first is always tough.”
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May 11, 2021 04:03
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Could I get a dicord invite? I'm trying to get started writing more often, it'd be nice to have others to maybe bounce ideas off of.
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May 11, 2021 04:04
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In with ghostpunk.
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May 12, 2021 17:06
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:29 |
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Ghostpunk New Beginnings 1175/1984 words Slamming open the door the workshop in the back room of the appliance store, Clyde dropped his satchel onto the workbench. He had less time than usual, the spirit engine on his usual bus had balked at the rainy weather, and the driver had spent a half hour swearing at it before a Warden finally showed up to convince it to get moving again, and Clyde was itching to get started. There were rules to how a spirit could be treated, the Spirit Council saw to that. Research into how to improve cages was closely regulated, and even maintenance had to take place in a licensed workshop. Spirits were aware that they had once been alive, and they could experience physical sensations almost like a living human could. They never remembered their original identities and no permanent harm could be done to them short of complete destruction, but even so there was a decade of protests and demonstrations before their use as an energy source was finally approved. The final decision to allow the use of spirits in engines had rested almost entirely on the very first spirit ever captured. Bruce Johnson had trapped his recently deceased neighbor George Cunningham’s spirit in a steel cage built in a particular geometric pattern and connected it to a telegraph. George had been a telegraph operator before he died and had been able to communicate with Bruce. George’s testimony about what he could experience and remember had been the bedrock of any development related to spirit engines from then on. The most vital parts of his testimony were that he could feel the environment surrounding his cage even if it couldn’t hurt him, and that he had enough recollection of skills he had in life to be able to communicate. Anything personal was lost to him, which most researchers considered a boon now that they had proof of an afterlife. All of this would have been for nothing if Bruce hadn’t forgotten to connect the batteries to the telegraph one day, showing that the spirit could generate electricity as long as it wanted to. The downside to spirit engine use was that they were temperamental at the best of times. Everyone had a story about being stranded in their car in bad weather because the spirit didn’t want to do keep going. So many advances were held up by the lack of a reliable power source. Clyde was enthralled with the magazine articles about flying machines that would carry people through the air at hundreds of miles per hour, and maybe one day even take someone like him to other planets. It wasn’t possible with an engine that could decide it was too windy or too cold, but that’s what Clyde was so excited about., he had discovered a way to trick the spirit’s about their surroundings. Up until now, no matter how it was insulated a spirit could reliably tell what the environment around it was like. What was happening was well understood, though why it happened was not. Put simply, a spirit knew and experienced the conditions around it’s cage, and anything connected to the box holding it became part of the cage. Even something as simple as a stick duct taped to a cage and dipped in water made the spirit feel wet. At this point most people had given up on trying to build a cage so that a spirit would only experience comfortable conditions and just had to convince the spirit to keep doing what you wanted. That’s where Clyde knew he could change things. He could get the spirits to be more reliable and useful than ever, as long as he was careful. Clyde knew that he could get a flying machine running if he could create a reliable engine This dead end job he worked had given him the idea and the first test to show it could be done. Clyde worked the repairs desk, dealing with pissed off people who never took five minutes to adjust their cages. Half the time they’d left a cage somewhere it could get cold and just didn’t want to warm it up. They were designed to be easy to remove and placed somewhere warm and dry so the spirit would start working again but no one wanted to do something that simple. They just wanted someone to take out their frustrations on. One boring day, a woman had brought in a cage that she said wouldn’t reset. She bitched so much and so long that finally Clyde’s manager Jean just gave her a new one. Store policy was to write off the spirit engines that wouldn’t reset and humanely destroy them, but Jean said Clyde could mess with it for a couple of days just to see if he could get it running. Before his next shift, Clyde was examining the cage in the back room and noticed some odd damage to the cage. It happened from time to time, where a few dents in the sides of cage disrupted the geometric symmetry and prevented any energy from being extracted. This cage, however, didn’t appear to be damaged. Cages conformed to a complicated spiral similar to a Moebius strip, but this cage had some dents near each end. Normally he would have tossed it at this point, but once he had warmed up the cage it still generated power. Some careful measuring showed Clyde that the dents were symmetrical and weren’t like anything he’d seen before. The geometry of cages was well known, and some modifications increased energy production, but this one didn’t fit the patterns he knew. After a deep dive into the repair manuals and his geometry textbooks, Clyde realized that if he tuned the cage’s settings, he could get more power than even the best cages he’d seen. Before his next shift, he connected the power couplings and adjusted the settings. When he saw the power generated, he gave a little “Woo!” and pumped his fists in the air but bumped the table and knocked the cage into his coffee. The dark liquid spilled on the cage, and with a muffled curse he went to wipe it off so he could double check the numbers but stopped before he did. A wet spirit cage for appliances never worked long, and even if it did keep going it’s power production dropped noticeably. This one stayed constant, but his boss walked in and told him to clock in early. The repair line was longer than usual and he needed an extra hand. Clyde survived the longest shift of his life, spent a sleepless night tossing and turning and showed up at the appliance shop as soon as it opened. He spent most of the morning double checking his measurements and making sure the connections were waterproof. He turned everything on and set the cage in the bowl he’d brought from home and filled with water. The power meter stayed constant, and he headed off to his shift happier than he’d ever been.
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May 17, 2021 07:18
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