Note: This may seem like two stories, separated by a line of asterixes. It isn't, of course, it's the same story told in two different realities, or perhaps the same reality, but 500 years apart. At least the two core concepts are the same.
From the written ship's log of the Endeavor:
We left Earth with great fanfare, the first manned starship, off to look at 3 planets that were suspected of being habitable. Our ship was fast, and we expected to spend most of our time in hibernation, waking for maybe a month at a time to conduct routine maintenance. The computer was programmed to keep us alive and healthy enough to complete the mission, and had a full VR suite to while away what waking hours weren't devoted to work routines.
We were four years out from Earth when the bomb went off.
I don't know who planted it, but I'm guessing Earth First or one of the really whacko environmental groups that insist that "we have no right" to colonize other worlds.
Anyway, the bomb went off in the cryo-berths, killing all 30 of my crew mates. I was on a short, unscheduled waking cycle to repair a bad repeater on our communications array, so I had the engine room between me and the explosion, and didn't get a scratch.
The computer wasn't so lucky. 90% of it's processing capacity was destroyed, and by the time it finished re-routing its programming, it had no room for anything other than medical oversight, navigation, and one (1) game that I could play, an ancient puzzle game called "Minesweeper". The cryo-berths were utterly destroyed, so I was sentenced to solitary confinement for 30 years.
Obviously, I went mad within months. The computer fixed that by harvesting different brain chemicals, etc, from the frozen bodies of my crew mates, and has kept me rigidly sane ever since. I expect that there's enough "material" to keep me this way for the entire trip.
I have 25 years to go.
But I'm getting pretty good at Minesweeper.
*****************************************************
A Bad Day in Old Town.
The tramp freighter picked up a parking orbit around Earth.
Nobody challenged it, of course...Earth had been abandoned as a dead world 100 years earlier. From space it looked like a brownish-yellow marble, with just a hint of blue-green. The last of the holdouts had been shipped off to newer garden planets, as the last of the eco-system failed.
Captain Semaj couldn't have cared less. What he cared about was the stiff in the shuttle. It was in style at this point for rich old bastards to be buried on Earth, the cradle of mankind, yada, yada...and even though this was happening quite often, the fee for burying the old weirdo here would allow Captain Semaj to retire. No more hauling ore around in solitude.
The shuttle flight to the pre-selected point was completely uneventful.
The Captain looked around as a servitor droid dug the grave. There was a verdigrised arm bearing a torch sticking out of the sand about a mile away, and a concrete stairwell closer. His suit pickups seemed to be catching a noise from that, but it was probably just the wind going across the entrance.
He was brought back to reality by the thump of the old geezer's body going into the hole. He turned around, read the short service clearly while looking at the body, so that his suit recorder would catch it all for the lawyers and executors back home, and then waited as the servitor filled the hole back in.
But this time he DID hear something from the concrete stairwell. It sounded like giggling.
Captain Semaj walked over to the stairs, and looked down. In the darkness, he could clearly hear a whiny voice saying "mine mine mine..." The Captain walked down the stairs, expecting to see some broken old announcement system in what was now clearly an old subway system.
Instead, he saw a man. The fellow was covered in tumors and scarring from radiation burns, and was clutching a human hand. He was gnawing on it. The man scuttled backwards out of Captain Semaj's suit lights, now screaming "MINE MINE MINE!"
"I just want to help, man...", the Captain began.
"Oh, but you can." another voice said, as a bank of ancient lights crackled to life. The Captain whirled around, and found that there were dozens of other mutated humans in a large chamber with him. One large-ish one rose from what appeared to be a primitive throne, and approached him."
"I can tell them you're here", the Captain said, "They'll send proper medical supplies, get you off this rock."
"Oh, right", the mutant leader replied, "The same people that left us here to die, so we wouldn't stink up their perfect new worlds with our disfigurations? No, if you tell them, they'll stop bringing bodies. I think you can help us in a more direct sense. Fresh meat."
"Fresh...Meat...", the Captain murmured in horror, while the mutants whooped and hollered.
Captain Semaj pulled his burner and shot the mutant chief in the face, at a range of 20 feet. Designed to burn through combat armor, the pulsed plasma burned the chief's head off cleanly at the neck. The Captain turned and ran back up the stairs.
Behind him, he heard a high-pitched voice say, "The boss is so thoughtful! He didn't just GET lunch, he IS lunch!".
The Captain piled into his shuttle and crash-started his engines, howling off the desert sands in mere moments. He left the loading door open until the only air in the shuttle was in his suit, just in case.
On ship, he flopped into his chair and told the computer to break orbit.
"Goddamn freaks. Goddamn cannibal freaks", he muttered to himself, "Well, fuck this shit. When I get back, all those credits are mine. I'm quitting this shit and moving to one of the pleasure worlds, where I'm gonna live a dream of expensive whores and booze, and I'm never gonna wake up."
Wake up.
Wake up.
HEY, WAKE THE FUCK UP!
James Semaj snapped out of his drugged haze, and looked at Nast, who was shaking him by the arm with a tumor-covered hand.
"Come on, James. We got a whole train full of stiffs to unload, some freighter's crew just buried like 50 fat bastards. We're gonna eat like kings for months."
"Leave me alone.", Semaj said, looking for his works.
"Oh, come on, for fuck's sake. Eventually, you're gonna run out of drugs, and then you're going to have to face reality like the rest of us."
Semaj watched Nast walk back toward the subway train, as he cooked up some more heroin on a spoon.
"Fuck you, Nast. Fuck you. I'm not going to 'face reality' if that means living on a graveyard world, and eating the dead. No, fuck that. I just came down too fast is all. Just need to up the dose a little bit. Yeah, that's it."
I do not want to be in your head right now.
Quote from: Charley Brown on September 25, 2010, 07:02:17 PM
I do not want to be in your head right now.
Well, that's good. Because between me, and the piles of mad dog's shit, there simply isn't
room.
Holy shit. I have a feeling that when You've gotten all of these written, I'm going to have to read through them all in once straight go.
Great writing Dok. This stuff is spectacular.
Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on September 25, 2010, 07:12:42 PM
Holy shit. I have a feeling that when You've gotten all of these written, I'm going to have to read through them all in once straight go.
Great writing Dok. This stuff is spectacular.
Thanks, James.
It turns out I will need all 5 issues to make my point. There's too much background material required.
QuoteIt turns out I will need all 5 issues to make my point. There's too much background material required.
I can get that. Sometimes the idea your trying to get across is just too important to try and express in one fell swoop.
I do have a question though: I was kind of surprised to find myself appearing in this one. I was wondering whether that was you are just inserting people you know into the story, or whether the inclusion of Nigel, Nast, and myself was for some other reason. Part of the idea you're trying to get across?
Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on September 25, 2010, 07:18:14 PM
QuoteIt turns out I will need all 5 issues to make my point. There's too much background material required.
I can get that. Sometimes the idea your trying to get across is just too important to try and express in one fell swoop.
I do have a question though: I was kind of surprised to find myself appearing in this one. I was wondering whether that was you are just inserting people you know into the story, or whether the inclusion of Nigel, Nast, and myself was for some other reason. Part of the idea you're trying to get across?
No, I just grabbed names sort of at random. You have the whole pulp hero thing going, so you got to be the pilot with the zap gun.
Nast lives in Santa Barbara, so naturally I made him a cannibal mutant.
Nigel reminds me of Kali, with less arms, if you take the entirety of the myth into account.
Fair enough. So when are you planning on doing the next one?
Great story, Dok! I hope I'll be able to grasp your point when you finish the other two.
Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on September 25, 2010, 07:25:12 PM
Fair enough. So when are you planning on doing the next one?
Tomorrow.
And the last one on Monday.
QuoteTomorrow.
And the last one on Monday.
Wonderful. Looking forward to them immensely.
This is great! :mittens:
I do so enjoy cannibalism. I'd really like to see the first one all the way through, watching the guy lose it, shits of the hopeful people cheerily sending the ship off.
Whoaaaaa
The Minesweeper part made me giggle but gave me chills.
Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on September 25, 2010, 07:18:14 PM
QuoteIt turns out I will need all 5 issues to make my point. There's too much background material required.
I can get that. Sometimes the idea your trying to get across is just too important to try and express in one fell swoop.
I do have a question though: I was kind of surprised to find myself appearing in this one. I was wondering whether that was you are just inserting people you know into the story, or whether the inclusion of Nigel, Nast, and myself was for some other reason. Part of the idea you're trying to get across?
I was surprised to see myself too! You know, there are some days when I do feel like a disfigured cannibal mutant.
These Brief Explanations are lurid and entertaining, in a horrible way. I do look forward to the next ones. :)
So far what I get from this series is themes of human nature, with a focus on the ways our own civilzation and intelligence grants us worse fates than death.
Warmer? Cooler?
That ending, man. That was something else. I like it, though. I look forward to the other ones.
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/P3nT4gR4m/23skidoo/Endeavour.jpg)
:x
Also, so far, I'm catching certain tenuous themes, but no unified message yet. Unless that message is "unremitting horror caused by ignorance, entrapment and lonliness". I fel there is more to it than that though, but of course will wait until part V.
Good solid writing, and an excellent use of imagery (that is staying with me even though I can't remember the exact wording of each part).
An interesting format for this series too, I'm liking it Dok.
This is better than most of the pulp magazine sci-fi I've ever read. Better material, and more madness behind it. Dok, this stuff needs wider dispersal.
Quote from: Richter on September 26, 2010, 08:07:16 PM
This is better than most of the pulp magazine sci-fi I've ever read. Better material, and more madness behind it. Dok, this stuff needs wider dispersal.
This. I totally had flashbacks of old musty paperbacks while reading these.
Quote from: Richter on September 26, 2010, 08:07:16 PM
This is better than most of the pulp magazine sci-fi I've ever read. Better material, and more madness behind it. Dok, this stuff needs wider dispersal.
Thanks. I may combine all of this.
All of this is really good, and is making me think.
I read this over the weekend and have not been able to get it off my brain.
I will pass on the message from the boys....
MOAR!!!!
This is some realllllly good stuff, Rog. I'm eagerly awaiting the next one. I like how Payne described how he saw it--kind of has affected me in the same way. I think I'm starting to get a feel for the underlying message...I THINK.
Quote from: Kiaransalee on September 27, 2010, 02:56:09 PM
I read this over the weekend and have not been able to get it off my brain.
I will pass on the message from the boys....
MOAR!!!!
IV is up.
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 26, 2010, 04:05:09 AM
So far what I get from this series is themes of human nature, with a focus on the ways our own civilzation and intelligence grants us worse fates than death.
Warmer? Cooler?
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 27, 2010, 05:53:20 PM
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 26, 2010, 04:05:09 AM
So far what I get from this series is themes of human nature, with a focus on the ways our own civilzation and intelligence grants us worse fates than death.
Warmer? Cooler?
Not really. I think I can do this by the end of V.
I used to love pulp science fiction, during its last gasp in the 1980s.
I've been bouncing the first story around in my head for 20 years. The second one even longer, though I have a paralyzing suspicion that it isn't original, that I may have read something like it in one of the 80s pulp mags, and simply forgotten...It's been 20-30 years, and I can't remember how I thought of it, or even if I did.
The first story I thought of when I read an article by some weenie in Omni Magazine moaning about how we "ruined" the moon by putting footprints on it, and how we had no right to go to Mars because there might still be one or two microbes left that we'd kill. Because we're evil. It occurred to me that either environmental groups or groups opposed to spending resources in space (as opposed to feeding the hungry here) might actually sabotage a space mission to "make their point".
The second story seems almost too familiar, because I've been thinking about it occasionally since the early 80s. If I DID lift someone elses' work, or even "borrow heavily", I apologize. I honestly can't remember how and when - or if - I thought it up. I read a LOT of pulp back then, and something might have soaked in.
I really miss those old pulp mags...Epic, Heavy Metal (still exists, but only as softcore porn for nerds), Galaxy, etc. It just isn't as much fun reading them online, and the world is a little drabber since they went belly up.
Yeah I DLed a bunch of Heavy Metal, and the newer stuff seems exactly as you say. There are even ads for hentai in some of them. :|
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 27, 2010, 07:15:56 PM
Yeah I DLed a bunch of Heavy Metal, and the newer stuff seems exactly as you say. There are even ads for hentai in some of them. :|
Epic and Saga avoided that, and promptly went out of business.
Fucking nerds, can't do ANYTHING right. Pulp is for zap guns, porn is for teh boobs, etc.
:lulz: Don't go fingering my vast, complex, and nuanced subculture like that!
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 27, 2010, 07:31:00 PM
:lulz: Don't go fingering my vast, complex, and nuanced subculture like that!
:lulz:
bump
I remember THIS series. :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 28, 2010, 04:29:13 PM
Please direct all hate mail and packages of poomp through my assistant, Mistress Freeky. :lulz:
Dok,
Is amazed that he was patient enough to wait 6 days for the punchline.
PS: It still DOES represent my core values.
This could run like a motherfucker, (who just got caught in the act) Nicely written, nicely bumped. For some reason, I'm getting a "Stainless steel Rat" atmos about this. (Might be the underlying darkness that oozes from your black, shrivelled Heart) But with more dark bits.
Although it has got a pulpy substance to it, I think it could go well in GNovel Form (SSR adapted well to comic form) If you could get a artist to do it justice.
Bump for later use.
And to stop it getting swallowed up into the vast, morass of twisted, twisting threads, into which no search function dares to go.