SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread V

[Force Lord]

A little change of pace from the C-6 hijinks.

[Tanasinn]

At some point I'll get into why my diplos seem fairly impressed by what they see around them visiting the technocracy, but the main reason's fairly obvious: they just had a multi-billion-casualty war in the last century. :p

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. By the way, the planet is Reisenburg, the capital city is Prime City (unimaginatively named).

And... decadent? Well, from a certain point of view, I suppose. Much of the city center is quite shiny, after all, and that can easily be mistaken for decadence if you're used to gritty Everything Is Brown Used Future cities.

Check out Shroom's "Spozavik in Umeria" posts for a look at Prime City from an outsider's perspective. Anyone who calls the place decadent would probably suffer a fatal brain injury if they ever went to the Sovereignty, I'll say that much. But by the standards of "Wow, there aren't any visible bomb craters in the place!" Prime City is pretty good.

EDIT: They'd probably be less impressed by the worlds on the colonial fringe, which tend to be more Firefly-fringe and less Firefly-Core.

[Tanasinn]

When I said "capitol," I was referring to the planet Reisenburg in general, not the capitol city specifically.

The Union is a pretty used future place, yes, with a lot of its major population centers having been rebuilt from near total rubble (or worse, ashes) following the civil war. A focus on practicality means that Union cities aren't all that aesthetically pleasing; think giant Soviet-era housing blocks of the FUTURE. Union citizens themselves are a bit reserved by first galactic standards (something I haven't gotten into yet in any detail).

EDIT: Still, perhaps 'decadent' was a bit too strong a word. Leaves me precious little to describe the Solarians with.

[Siege]

"Lascivious gourmandizing Sybarites" works for me .

[Simon_Jester]

When I said "capitol," I was referring to the planet Reisenburg in general, not the capitol city specifically.

Fair enough, but if you're headed for Diplomat Square, you may not see much else of the planet except from orbit. If Union planets still look a mess from the war when you're forty or fifty miles up... well, I feel sorry for you guys, leave it at that.

The Union is a pretty used future place, yes, with a lot of its major population centers having been rebuilt from near total rubble (or worse, ashes) following the civil war. A focus on practicality means that Union cities aren't all that aesthetically pleasing; think giant Soviet-era housing blocks of the FUTURE. Union citizens themselves are a bit reserved by first galactic standards (something I haven't gotten into yet in any detail).

Heh. The fringe worlds would look right familiar then; urban housing on a lot of those planets (one of the notable exceptions being New Athens) looks, yes, like the Khrushchev and Brezhnev-era housing blocks in the good districts. The recreation facilities might or might not be better appointed than they'd see back home.

In the bad districts... well, the buildings are still fairly well-maintained, but the social conditions go to pot and take the quality of life with them. There are reasons why so many of the fringe worlders prefer to avoid moving to the major cities so long as they are free to do so; individual housing in the countryside means MiniWell tends to ignore you, because they're concentrated on the apartment blocks and the denizens thereof.

Which, in turn, tends to discourage economic development, which helps to explain why the Fringe stays the Fringe.

[Akhlut]

ShelExCo likes it that way, though. It means those Fringe Worlders get the absolute best that they can ferry in for the cheapest amount possible, including possibly highly addictive drugs completely healthy weight-loss supplements marketed recommended by a cocaine-addicted rock-n-roll clown doctor (reminds me, I need to get back to that storyline again).

[Simon_Jester]

Sooner or later, the Ministry of Welfare is going to notice that this is going on, and determine that the products in question are in fact highly inconsistent with the ideal of "being well." At which point ShelExCo is going to be made unhappy.

Emphasis on "later," in all probability...

[Akhlut]

Sooner or later, the Ministry of Welfare is going to notice that this is going on, and determine that the products in question are in fact highly inconsistent with the ideal of "being well." At which point ShelExCo is going to be made unhappy.

Emphasis on "later," in all probability...

Isn't the onus of regulation on the MiniWel's side of things? ShelExCo will just throw up their hands and say "hey, we thought it was okay and you guys gave us the rubber stamp!"

Then, of course, ShelExCo can also stop shipping goods to the Fringe Worlds out of spite, especially if they get a huge piece of the BEEEF.

Of course, that just makes for better stories.

[Tanasinn]

In that case, the Union'd probably do commerce with the Umerian fringe willingly enough, and our state-run factories make widgets so rugged not even a Bragulan could break 'em (okay, that might be an exaggeration). Of course, I can't guarantee some revolutionary spirit might rub off the shippers. Purely accidentally, of course.

[Simon_Jester]

Isn't the onus of regulation on the MiniWel's side of things? ShelExCo will just throw up their hands and say "hey, we thought it was okay and you guys gave us the rubber stamp!"

In theory, yes. In practice, the Umerian government is sometimes... vindictive about things like this?

Remember Technocrat Games...

In that case, the Union'd probably do commerce with the Umerian fringe willingly enough, and our state-run factories make widgets so rugged not even a Bragulan could break 'em (okay, that might be an exaggeration). Of course, I can't guarantee some revolutionary spirit might rub off the shippers. Purely accidentally, of course.

Well, vanguard-party doctrine reacts very oddly with the Umerian mode of government; I'd have to think very carefully about how it might play out. Most Umerian fringe revolts are populist in nature- pro-democracy because democracy is viewed as an antidote to some of the hamhanded government policy that causes the problems Fringers dislike.

[Tanasinn]

One element that might appeal to fringers is that, at the planetary and community level, democracy is considered preferable in mainstream (that is to say, Stein-canon) new humanism once a revolution has actually been carried out.

Of course, the actual processes of revolution as new humanism pushes aren't particularly populist or democratic, just as you say. Probably put-upon fringers want anything but another group of people going "do this/obey this...it's for your own good."

[KlavoHunter]

Also, check the PM I sent you. I'd like to work with you on setting this up and finding you a spot.

Put him where the United Sectors are/were. They seriously have not participated in the slightest.

Man...turians...next we'll be getting space elves asari Which reminds me...the game hadn't mutilated mass effect yet

Well, I was going to show Mass Effect-style small arms as having been the last great generation of Klavostani slugthrower-style small-arms before the Beam Revolution.

[Tanasinn]

Put up a small bit in the prologue thread regarding one of my characters. A more standard prologue post.

[Ryan Thunder]

Isn't the onus of regulation on the MiniWel's side of things? ShelExCo will just throw up their hands and say "hey, we thought it was okay and you guys gave us the rubber stamp!"

In theory, yes. In practice, the Umerian government is sometimes... vindictive about things like this?

Remember Technocrat Games...

In that case, the Union'd probably do commerce with the Umerian fringe willingly enough, and our state-run factories make widgets so rugged not even a Bragulan could break 'em (okay, that might be an exaggeration). Of course, I can't guarantee some revolutionary spirit might rub off the shippers. Purely accidentally, of course.

Well, vanguard-party doctrine reacts very oddly with the Umerian mode of government; I'd have to think very carefully about how it might play out. Most Umerian fringe revolts are populist in nature- pro-democracy because democracy is viewed as an antidote to some of the hamhanded government policy that causes the problems Fringers dislike.

We tend to get libertarian revolts because people want to be able to manipulate each other more effectively than they can with the luxury markets.

[Simon_Jester]

We tend to get libertarian revolts because people want to be able to manipulate each other more effectively than they can with the luxury markets.

Honestly, a lot of the Fringe citizens just want to be able to fucking vote. Umeria just does not hold elections for responsible government offices, as a rule. There's polling, there's a certain amount of responsiveness from most of the government... but it's a blatant case of "taxation without representation is tyranny!" being an understandable response, even if Umerian core-worlders don't see it that way.

[Akhlut]

Isn't the onus of regulation on the MiniWel's side of things? ShelExCo will just throw up their hands and say "hey, we thought it was okay and you guys gave us the rubber stamp!"

In theory, yes. In practice, the Umerian government is sometimes... vindictive about things like this?

Remember Technocrat Games...

Just remember, should things go that route, that the NenAltKik gubbymint will try to help, due to things like "friendship," and an "alliance," and "we need you guys to service our huge fucking gun."

But, honestly, ShelExCo might be made up of a bunch of amoral, conniving schemers whose bottomless avarice could consume whole planets, but they aren't idiots. They'll sell the drugs until the Umerian MiniWel's eye starts to turn toward the Fringe and then they'll back away a bit ("Weight loss supplements? Oh! Our testing just turned up some long range problems we hadn't expected! It makes an excellent plant fertilizer though, so please don't hold us responsible if some ne'er-do-wells opt to freebase plant fertilizer just to get high!"). I imagine this thing has happened a few times before.

Which does remind me: ShelExCo would be delighted to help along scientific progress by giving a substantial grant to a worthy candidate. They do so hope that there won't be any unpleasantness about the few unexpected minor problems that this product has had.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not unprecedented at all, Akhlut.

I've heard it suggested that the reason UMERTHIRST is allowed in Umeria is that it is, technically, classified as detergent.

[Shroom Man 777]

THE GRAPHIC UNCENSORED X-RATED BARELY-LEGAL EDITION BANNED FROM HUMAN CONSUMPTION!

Read at your own peril!

Spoiler

THE OFFICIAL IMPARTIAL AND 100% TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE VLYADIBRAGSTOK SIMIAN INCIDENT ACCORDING TO THE BRAGULAN MINISTER OF INFORMATION


PREFACE: "There are no Solarian forcefields! The Replicants are committing sepuuku outside the gates of Bragdad!"





The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400

But before either side could open fire, something happened. Something great and terrible. The wind picked up there, on the snowy plains of the tundra. And, somehow, someway, it seemed as though the weather was becoming even colder than the frostbitten subzero temperatures customary to the nuclear winter wasteland. Even Bragulan soldiers, normally accustomed to the arctic climes, shivered in their light uniforms as they were chilled to the bone. Frost seeped over the mechanisms of their foremost armored vehicles, some of their engines even ceasing to function despite being weather-proofed to work in the airless coldness of space, and being rated to a few degrees shy of absolute zero.

It was not an ordinary chill that fell on the armies that bayed on the Crystal Palace's doors. It was psychic frost. And so it was that the Solarian lieges opened the doors to their arboreal realm, and stepping forth from the portal to greet the armored bear cavalry were none other than...



The Blacksuits of Solaris. Clad in all black, from their suits to their shades, and flanked by a squadron of drone-saucers whose circular hulls gleamed silver and had gravitonics that made strange oscillating sounds. These men in black were the best of the best of the best, and they were the Solarians' first, last and only line of defense. Despite the frigid cold, and their thin clothings, they did not seem to mind the weather at all, nor did they seem perturbed by the sheer number of bears bearing nuclear arms bearing down towards them.

The Bragulans growled at their sight, knowing full well what these alien abominations were - genetic blasphorities that were the culmination of Bragule's greatest foes, the abhorred Apexai and the hated humans.

When the blacksuits spoke, it was not with their mouths. Their voice was carried by the very wind.

What purpose have you here, Bragulans? Why have you come, with your guns and your tanks and your bombs? We are here in peace. Whether it will be the peace of plenty, or the peace of your silent graves, is wholly your choice.

Some of the Bragulan conscripts howled in horror at this, fearing it to be witchcraft or strange alien curses. They were promptly righted by their commissars. After they did, one of them went before the blacksuits. It was fitting for a political officer to address them rather than a general, for this was a political matter.



He gave himself warmth with a flask of tsvagna and then regarded the Solarians coldly. These blacksuit psykers may fashion themselves to be half-blooded princes of the universe, but to him they were just more puny humans in a galaxy already rife with such vermin. He did not care if their psychoflexitive powers and grand mastery of psionics gave them the quantitative might of warships, no. His strength was in Byzonism, his strength was eternal. He looked these misshapen, pale, albinic humans down.

"This is not war," he growled in his native Bragulan, not wanting to dirty himself by speaking the humans' barbarian tongue. "This is pest control."

The wind lashed against him, the very air seemed to thicken, as though submerging him in ice water. The blacksuits gazed at him with their black shades. Though in a snowstorm, their clothes seemed to be undisturbed, not even their ties were picked up by the wind. Their black suits seemed to be the only thing that stood out in the total whiteout.

Explain yourself before we use our minds to turn you into a bearskin rug!

He didn't have to. He took another defiant swag of tsvagna, the battery acid/rocket fuel mix had been sweetened by antifreeze and thus was not frozen by the cold. He downed the last of it and discarded his flask. As the bone-chilling wind whipped around him, he laughed in the faces of the Solarians. He fucking laughed in their faces.

Their black, insectile eyes seemed to widen under the shades, as though they had felt something with their wretched spider-insect senses. The snowstorm abruptly subsided, and all the blacksuits' heads turned around as one. For behind them, on the other side of the Crystal Palace, came an enormous black form whose shadow blotted out the sun. The earth shook with each and every mighty footfall.

"You fools!" the commissar cackled. "You foolish fools!"

What have you done? In rage, a blacksuit reached out with a blue-gloved hand, as though to choke the bear's throat, but thought better of it.

“You will pay for your insolence!” the commissar continued cackling.

What treachery is this?!

"See for yourselves, puny humans! See for yourselves!"

A mighty roar drew the attention of all assembled antagonists. From the lowliest of Bragulan conscripts, to the most gung-ho Solarian trooper. They looked up to feast their eyes on the terrible visage of a creature unlike any other, whose magnificent form towered above all save for the Sovereignty's spire, the Crystal Palace itself.



Thunder and lightning heralded the return of the King.

The Solarian defenses scrambled to meet this new threat coming from an entirely different direction. If the Computational Intelligence battle-controllers hadn't known better, they would've thought the whole Bragulan advance to have been a diversion for the return of the King. But they didn't!

Entire squadrons of power armor-clad Replicants scrambled to meet this unforeseen enemy. Killforms morphed out of their polymorphic perches to take their attack formations along with defense drones and assault-LARCs.

"Take off every ZIG!" ordered a Zigonian commander, dispatching a force of reptilian fighters to put an end to the madness once and for all.

But it was not to be.

"NYET!" bellowed the commissar. On his command, the countless cannons of the arrayed Bragulan army - and numerous more active targeting systems began designating their target for the outlying nuclear missile batteries. "STOP!"

What?! A blacksuit shot back. His mind-voice echoed in the wind, carried by the air, because Bragulans couldn't hear his thought-speech for their skulls were simply too thick to get through without shooting them open. Why?!

"Solarian forces, stand down immediately! You are not to engage the ape! The proud forces of the Bragulan Star Empire shall take care of it!"

Yeah right! The Blacksuit snorted derisively.

"We are the Solarians' only protection," the commissar declared with a straight snout.

From what?!

"Are you kidding me? From yourselves!" the commissar barked. Then he turned around to a cadre of special aviators from the local Proletarian People's Pest Animal and Human Vermin Control Center of Vlyadibragstok. He nodded to them, they knew what to do next. "Launch the rotocraft!"



The aviators acknowledgments were inaudible through the din of their rotocrafts' rotoblades, but they gave a signal, raising their paws with claws up. Their scarves billowed in the wind. They adjusted their leather caps, put on their goggles, and in their sky-chariots they took to the skies like the fighter aces of old.

It was time for some daring heroics.

***

At last the King found his throne, and as a gentle-ape befitting his noble throughbred lineage, he offered the perch to his beloved Queen. She accepted graciously, sitting herself daintily and even flashing him a coquettish smile (actually relieved to be freed from the grip of his paws, and gasping for breath while snarling at him viciously). That was it! That was the sign! She had accepted the nesting site, deemed it a suitable place for them to commence their carnal copulation, and assented for him to begin that most beautiful of biological process of spreading one's genetic material. Now they would procreate a whole new noble lineage of royal apes. Uninterrupted, undisturbed, and in plain sight of all within the horizon, they would begin to spawn. The King and his Little Flower.

He bared the enormity of his maleness for her to see, and was pleased to see her salivating (actually vomiting from the nausea of being hauled up a skyscraper), a sign that she was ready to devour him. Yes, finally, the King would soon slake his lust. He would show her, he would show them all, the pleasures he could give to those he chose to be his mares. Perhaps, after finishing with his Queen, those below who saw his performance would wish to become his concubines. The prospects of this titillated the King further. He bent down to his Purple Flower and licked his lips in anticipation of what was to come -

But before they could even begin, an unknowable pain stabbed through the King's body. He howled in pain at the hot stinging sensation and in anger turned to face those who would interrupt his most mammalian matrimony. He raised his mighty fist at them and roared in rage, in primordial fury at those who defied the ruler of the animal kingdom. His simian shriek echoed through the skies, his apeish face a mask of sub-homonid hatred.



How dare they?! Those insolent fools, blocking him at this most tender, loving and beautiful moment. They were attacking him when he was on the verge of consummating with his consort. He would not stand for this. No. Never. Whatever he may have been, a simple ape several storey tall and weighing countless tons taken from the Planet of the Skulls to this strange and frightening new world, chased and hounded by furless monkeys and overgrown bears, despite all of that he was still King! He was the last in a mighty lineage of great apes, a god to the degenerate populace of his world, and the ruler of the greatest kingdom of all - the animal kingdom!

They would pay for their defiance. The King saw his usurpers now, coming from the skies. They were gnats, miserable little insects buzzing in the sky. He pawed at them, trying to swat them like flies, but they were too fast. The King roared in frustration. The gnats formed up and descended upon him. They began spitting out fire, stabbing the King with their burning spit. The King howled in pain as once more the hot pain cut through his flesh. He staggered and almost fell off his very throne. But no, he gripped the peak of the metal tree with renewed strength. He looked at his Little Flower, saw her eyes wide with fear. He had to defend her from these beasts! This was his territory and they were trespassers seeking to steal his mate and take his tree. In stubborn defiance the King spited them by marking his territory in a final act of resistance.

Bleeding from his wounds, the King nevertheless fought on. He beckoned his enemies, those swarms of gnats, called them out to come again, daring them. He was not afraid. He was ready. He was born to be King, and thus he knew what he was meant to do. Beyond instinct, beyond thought, beyond good and evil. He knew what he had to do.

This was his fate.



As the sun dawned on Vlyadibragstok, the rotocraft formed up for one final attack run. The morning light gleamed off the chrome steel of the Crystal Palace. The sun was behind them as they descended from the clouds. The buzz of their rotors echoed in the air. The King squinted and shielded his eyes with a raised hand as they came, closer and closer. Finally, they resolved in his sight and he bellowed one last challenge - futile, but defiant to the end. He thumped his chest mightily, beating it with both paws as he would in a display of animalistic intimidation to any rival male. He was a silverback, the patch of clear fur on his back stained with blood from the gunshot wounds. Pain, he felt pain. Not unfamiliar, for in all the centuries he had ruled over the Planet of the Skulls, his existence had been that of pain. But now, it was over. He looked down at his Queen, his Little Flower, and knew that it had been good. For a brief moment in his harsh brutal life, he had known something else. Beauty. Love.

His final roar echoed mightily. Never before had such a magnificent creature graced any Bragulan world, and never since. The rotocraft fired their guns, the rounds tore through the King's meaty chest, punching through his lungs. The roar died, along with the King.

He stood there, atop his final throne. Life left his body. His eyes grew dull. He looked at his precious Little Flower. She reached out, as though to touch him. She did, her tender hand brushing against his bloodstained fur.

The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point.

He felt fear for the last time.

He closed his eyes and fell.

***

As the great ape fell, the micronuclear warhead - originally placed in the meat-bait by the Extreme Warfare Operations Kill Squads for the Fenrisians - detonated in his gullet. His body disappeared in a brilliant flash, and his scattered remains fell to the earth in a rain of beef. It showered on the spectators who had gathered below.



"It wasn't the Bragplanes..." Jack Turdner said quietly to himself. "It was beauty killed the beast."

A Bragulan approached him and tore the plutonium badge of the Bragulan Star Empire, last class, presented to friends of Bragule and granting them authority over conscripts, penal troopers and cub soldiers, off his chest.

"This is all your fault! This medal is not fit to grace you! It deserves to be given to an actual hero!" the Bragulan roared. Then he turned and pinned it on the feathers of an enormous eagle.

Fulcrum opened his wings shrieked.

[fgalkin]

^ gets the stamp of Daemonic approval, for it is awesome.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

With the Shroomanists being present at the BEEEF, the power of awesome must reign. Truly, I believe that this is the true ending, the proper ending.

In the words of Prime Minister Winston Shroom The 772nd: "If it isn't true, it ought to be, and more and better besides."

[KlavoHunter]

I reject reality and substitute it with the one above!

[Shroom Man 777]

It's terribly non-canon though. It'll be like Simon's Pulp SCIENCE Fiction post.

The one in the IC is canon, and has more cannons!

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Regarding the resurrected Lelouch's latest cult-related shenanigans, was that too over the top? I can never tell.

The only other question is, can he really prevail against the Byzantines, Klavostanis, and native Cananaanites?

[Shroom Man 777]

"My predecessors were illiterate fools who couldn't tell the scriptures apart from their own cunts!"

CUNTS FOR EYES