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More Futuristic Fun Than You Really Wanted, part II of V

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, March 29, 2011, 06:32:52 PM

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The Good Reverend Roger

March 29, 2011, 06:32:52 PM
The following is a transcript of the testimony of one Harold Johnson, while in NSA custody.  Mr Johnson has since been chemically lobotomized by doctors in the service of the US government for reasons undisclosed.

I knew something was wrong the moment I came out of the reentry envelope.  Everything was right down the line, instrument-wise, but there was no guide beam coming from the Philly spaceport...Or any other spaceport, for that matter.

By the time I realized that I had a problem, I was too busy trying to manually control the shuttle to think too much about it.

It was a bad landing.  You know that...My medical records, I am sure, detail the extent of my injuries.  Fucking shuttle pranged up in some Godforsaken patch of desert in Nevada, resulting in my current condition, and the total loss of the shuttle's engines.

Of course, the real shock wasn't just that I moved sideways in time.  I don't know any more about that than you do, really...No matter what you think, I was just a shuttle jock, not a physicist.  No, the real shock was how bad things are in this "when".

I've been reading your history, and I've pinpointed the divergence.  In 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm II had a big falling out with Otto Von Bismark, and replaced him with people that told the Kaiser what he wanted to hear...That Germany should and could be an empire to rival Britain.  This led directly to your "World War" - what a hideous concept - and a gang of murderous thugs taking over Russia...In my "when", Lenin died broke in Paris, and only has a footnote in philosophy texts.

Of course - as you know - the second half of your world war took place a few decades later, and following that there was the cold war, with the rather incidental "space race"...You went to the moon for all the wrong reasons, and then you just stopped.

This boggles my mind.  How could you go that far, and then just stop?  No asteroid mines, no free power beamed from Mercury, instead you're STILL using internal combustion and fission, not to mention coal.  How can you even breathe this soup you call air?

Anyway, because you never left the orbit of the moon, you never got to Europa.  There's something under the surface there, you know.  Something amazing...But my guess is that you'll breed yourself out of existence before you have a chance to find out WHY the universe seems to be empty of other intelligent life.

<interrogator's question redacted>

What?  No, I'm not going to tell you.  You're savages, and you probably should stay here.

<sounds of a scuffle, possible electrical noises>

Ow, fuck...See what I mean?  All you know is violence.  There's no way in hell I'm letting you loose into civilization.  Go fuck yourself.

<More unidentifiable noise>

Transcript ends.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

#1
March 29, 2011, 06:37:01 PM
This needs to be expanded into a novel, just to kick AC Clarke's ass around the court for a while.

Luna

#2
March 29, 2011, 06:38:18 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 29, 2011, 06:37:01 PM
This needs to be expanded into a novel, just to kick AC Clarke's ass around the court for a while.

What LMNO said.

We've got the talent around here to do it Thieves' World style, actually...
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

The Good Reverend Roger

#3
March 29, 2011, 06:39:28 PM
I'm down.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Jasper

#4
March 29, 2011, 06:40:27 PM
It's true though.  We are savages, and we need to be kept at the bottom of a gravity well, as many light years out of the picture as possible.

At least until we've thought very hard about what we've done, and taken off the dunce cap.

Jenne

#5
March 29, 2011, 06:44:38 PM
Wow...this is as good as Vonnegut, or at least reminds me sharply of him.  Fuck to the yeah.

The Good Reverend Roger

#6
March 29, 2011, 06:47:50 PM
I've always been fascinated by the fact that there are a number of incidents in world history that - having been just a little different - would utterly change the entire world.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Dysfunctional Cunt

#7
March 29, 2011, 06:49:23 PM
Damn.  

I mean....   well....  damn!

Very nice!!!

:mittens:

Richter

#8
March 29, 2011, 07:45:02 PM
Subject: Preliminary Findings from Anomaly Johnson

From: Dr. Ronald A. Torestein.

To:  [censored]

First and foremost, would we please assign a proper codename to this endeavor?  I know the name of the subject is generic, but even codenames from the early days of the intel community are better than that!  It's like you've all given up trying.

Aside from my continued distaste for your collective obtuseness, and the grand lack of lateral or critical thinking displayed by General [censored], the analysis and cataloguing of the wreck from site [censored] has been one of the more rewarding projects in my entire career.

As found, the engines were of course, ruined.  The other apparatus are in excellent shape.  Disappointing really, since they display no fundamental technology we do not already possess.  Their design and programming logic is more refined, however, and with fractal principles employed at varying levels.  They didn't just carve out circuits or logic as we do, almost crudely by comparison, but instead let them GROW to a certain degree.  The level or organic fluidity and adaptability is astounding.  Indeed the "snow flake patterned, obviously thermally compromised" verdict passed on them initially was beyond shortsighted.  (Or perhaps not.  Whatever ape grabbed the vial of ferro mercury solution tell him to TURN IT IN.  I suspect it is part of system that can re-grow the circuits if damaged.)  I can only imagine the clarity of vision needed to plot the initial logic that would then develop in a proto-organic pattern. 

Also the assessment of the engines has thus far assumed that they would be running at environmental background temperatures.  Watch a video of what a particle does when it approaches absolute zero.  Imagine (it will hurt, I know.) what they effect COULD do.  THEN tell me what you think of the "superfluous cooling hardware" mounted around the engines.  (There are a few on Youtube, which subject Johnson has found them "laughably primitive", I hope you'll be able to follow them)
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 22, 2015, 03:00:53 AM
Anyone ever think about how Richter inhabits the same reality as you and just scream and scream and scream, but in a good way?   :lulz:

Friendly Neighborhood Mentat

The Wizard

#9
March 30, 2011, 04:58:08 AM
 :mittens:

Nice! Alternate Histories are always interesting to read.
Insanity we trust.

Nephew Twiddleton

#10
March 30, 2011, 05:43:53 AM
Posting for reason mentioned in part I
Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

President Television

#11
March 30, 2011, 05:56:05 AM
Question: Can these threads tie into one another? Will there be mention of a spaceship wreck in the other one and mention of the Nessies in this one? Or are they entirely different stories, in different universes altogether?
My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.

Juana

#12
March 30, 2011, 07:13:07 AM
No idea, but this is fucking lovely and I don't even like spacified scifi most of the time (I made an exception for Gibson).


In fact, I think as soon as I get my book back, I think I'll spin off this and Saint Olga. Love it.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Juana

#13
March 30, 2011, 07:15:34 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 29, 2011, 06:47:50 PM
I've always been fascinated by the fact that there are a number of incidents in world history that - having been just a little different - would utterly change the entire world.
Also this. So many little moments and things that could have made all the difference. If Hitler had been accepted or just fucking died in the streets of Vienna or been shot in WWI.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

President Television

#14
March 30, 2011, 09:43:18 PM
I don't have any ideas yet, but I'm bumping this so that the thread doesn't get buried.
My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.
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