Mattlindel - Babayaga

WARNING!!!!

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

Please pass this on to everyone so that they are aware of the danger. I don’t how it is all around the world but I know it can’t just be here so please please spread the word. Thank you.

War for America's Legacy

Found from the last log of Flagship Captain Aergin:

“Captain, what’s wrong?”

For your eyes only. “Nothing, Admiral. Just a chest spasm. Might be time for another inspection.”

“If you’re sure, Captain.”

“Admiral Solkowałksa, I don’t say things I’m not sure about. You know that.”

“Yes, Captain.”

For your eyes only, Flagship Captain Aergin. Enter biometric triple security to access.

Triple biometric is the highest possible. Nothing good ever comes out of something locked like that.

Enter decrypt code.

They really aren’t messing around to have layered an encryption on top of the biometric.

Decrypt successful. Loading message.

“Captain Aergin,

At 0600 hours four days ago, an alien fleet appeared just outside of our atmosphere. We attempted to communicate, but we received only one phrase back, in the common tongue: ‘Pray to what gods you have.’ Before we could react, their energy spiked and their weapons discharged. America was slag and glass before we were able to do anything. That fleet was destroyed before they could do any more damage, luckily, but your family was killed along with the rest of the American population. We are sorry for your loss. Do nothing rash, this situation will be handled.

Condolences,

Interplanetary Fleet Commander Nurodu

I couldn’t believe it. America, gone. Just like that. In the blink of an eye. My family, friends, children. All gone. My crew was the only family I had left. Nurodu has the indecency to tell me to do “nothing rash,” like I’m just going to accept that my life needs to start over, like my husband and children weren’t just killed without a chance to fight back, like I’m not going to avenge the death of my country. I will have revenge.

—18 Months Later—

“Sir, you asked for updates on the identification of the species that destroyed America. A major data dump has just occurred when the Alien Classification/Dossier database updated. The relevant files are being shunted to your holodesk now, and the species is listed as having been confirmed to destroy your country.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. Dismissed.”

The Zorax, huh? Home planet Xeron, only 20 parsecs from here. Time for the plan. They have no other worlds colonized according to the database, and if I have my way, they never will. Those bastards will never see me coming.

“Set course for Xeron. We’ve been ordered to give the Zorax a visit to make sure they are on the up-and-up.” The lie didn’t bother me at all. I will say anything to avenge my family.

“Immediately, Captain.”

—3 hours later—

“Captain, coming out of FTL in 3…2…1…”

“Stay on course to the planet, stay in high orbit once we’ve arrived.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Time to enact my plan. I keyed for the computer to send an abandon ship protocol, on my authority. Earth Federation laws requires I make sure everyone else is off the ship first, but that’s the point.

“Abandon ship protocol 00215. All personnel report to your assigned pod as soon as possible for whichever species may be.”

“Everyone go. Admiral Solkowałksa, you have command. Take my personal pod. I don’t intend to make it off this ship. Jettison happens in 8 minutes.”

“Captain, are you sure?!?”

“I don’t say things I’m not sure of, Admiral. Go.”

Everyone is off the ship now. It’s very quiet. Not even the night cycle is this quiet.

“Computer, open communications with planet Xeron main base when in range.”

“Initiating communications.”

“Hello. My name is Flagship Captain Aergin, of the third American Fleet. You may remember glassing a place called America on Earth. I say the same to you now that you said to them: pray to what gods you have.”

“Communication interrupted.”

I punched up FTL for just long enough to come out in their atmosphere and collide with their largest landmass. This is my last log. America is avenged.

 (This is my first attempt at something other than lurking this tag! Hope y'all like it!

-therandomnessofages)

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

Notes

I posted this on Reddit HFY but I wanted to share this story here too. I thought people might enjoy it.

We don’t know what happened to them, for several hundred orbits of the local star system we’ve been looking at their ruins trying to decipher their history, culture, science and much more. Much has been discovered but we’ve still only scratched the surface of mountain of knowledge. For example: what we once thought were several separate alien societies turned out to be all one alien culture. How such a wide spread and advanced species vanished without a trace is a mystery.

One of many things that troubled us is that their written language seems to have hundreds of variations, many don’t even seem to relate to each other. In fact, this was the primary reason why their society had been so difficult to comprehend.

One such written language I’ve taken up to decoding looks deceptively simple, and is found across all their territories but for the longest time, I had found no key to decode it. On the surface, it looks incomplex, just circles, dots and lines placed upon a bar of lines going across the width of paper, but I suspected it was vastly elaborate as I have come across various texts that go from a few simple dots across a few bars to hundreds of various dots and lines all stuffed onto several connecting sheets filled with bars; these dots are not even bound to the bars as they can sometimes jump high above it or far below it.

Further, I had found other glyphs and symbols I had no way of discerning why they are placed where they are. The only thing I knew about this script is that it has been paired with other scripts of their written language. I’d even found identical sheets of these scripts paired with different scripts. I was almost sure this was a universal script for them, and if I could decode it; perhaps we’d have a key to decode all the other scripts.

One thing that had given me aid was a discovery a colleague of mine found, an ancient recording he was able to recover. This in its self was a breakthrough since most of their technology holding their nonphysical records is still inert and this small recovery was a miracle. Our fields of study don’t cross but what he discovered, in fact, did.

This colleague decided to wait until more people had the time before it would be viewed. I was among that group with others from various fields. Once we viewed it, what we found on it was the recording was a ritual of some sort. There was a large gathering of the aliens depicted in a room facing a podium, and on the podium, were a few aliens facing the crowd, one held a tool of some sort and the other was dressed in red with floral decorations. Then, all of a sudden, it started. The one in red spoke in soft and somber voice and I was in awe that same moment. The one holding the tool used it to make sounds that complimented the other’s spoken words in a harmony I never before experienced. It was, for lack of a better word, spell binding.

The moment they had started they had me trapped in trance. What I heard was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and it invoked powerful emotions in me. I felt as somber as the alien’s voice and I dearly wished I could hold my life companion in that moment, as if I didn’t do so soon, I never would again. Against all reason that said otherwise I pulled a holo-tab from my pocket and sent him a message telling him I needed to see him that night and that I loved him. There was an aching in my chest that didn’t leave until he finally replied a tic later assuring me he would come and asking if anything was wrong. I didn’t respond because, at that moment, I wasn’t sure. When the ritual finally ended, the emotions it conjured lingered in me. I looked upon the group to find everyone else was similarly affected, one of us even openly wept.

We watched it several more times, out of diligence and study, though we took several tics to recover ourselves and prepare our emotions better for it. One thing I hadn’t noticed before, flowing across the bottom of the recording, was a script being highlighted as the one in red spoke. A script I knew another colleague of mine was translating. Since this was his script, I forwarded the recording to him; with apt warning of its contents of course.

After the discovery of the recording, more attempts were made to recover the nonphysical information with some success but nothing new for my field came up after a cycle and my translation attempts still turned up nothing. Until my colleague whom I sent the first recording to had sent me back a few scripts with some additional notes he made. He had found a script sheet containing the words the alien in red had spoken; that was not all however. This script he sent had also contained the language I was trying to decipher, and another he was sure it was paired with. He couldn’t understand how they were related at all, so he jotted down his hypothesizes and sent it back to me. One script of mine was paired with his, yet the other wasn’t paired with any other type of written script. This wasn’t all that unusual, since half the time, my script came unpaired with others, but his notes insisted they went together. What puzzled me was that we only heard the one alien speak. If he was correct then I was missing something.

Cautiously and after long emotional preparation, I had returned to that recording of the alien ritual to review it with the scripts I received, hoping to glean any sort of incite. When it began again, I still felt a twinge in my chest, but I was able to focus. I had followed along as it spoke, both upon the recording and the sheet I pressed my primary digit to. Following my colleagues notes I could vaguely see relations from his script to its spoken words, I also saw a connection between his script and mine as it spoke but I could still not see how they translated. In the end, all I ended up with was frustration, I was still no closer to figuring out my script or how it was used.

I knew in the back of my mind there was a connection. Something in me saw it, but I just wasn’t sure what it was. My eyes drifted over my script once more, I had noticed that the dots and lines corresponded to timing along the bar, I didn’t know why. I saw each word the alien had spoken had also ran along with that timing but it didn’t make sense. I was at my wits end and about to throw everything off the table until my eyes landed upon the second unpaired yet related script.

My colleague was sure they were all together for a reason, and I had no other lead to go upon, so once more did I watch the recording, following the untranslated script. There were more dots and circles to follow but somehow, they fell in with the timing of the spoken words. Not wholly, but I could agree with my colleague now that they all did belong together, though I was still unsure why. When the spoken words had paused, this script had continued and at first, I couldn’t understand. Nothing was being spoken but as my digit steadily continued along the script something else was still keeping pace with each dot.

The realization hit me like a wave. The sounds coming from the tool the other alien was using, corresponded with each circle, dot and line on the page. As the tone of the tool grew and fell, so did the dots and circles rise and fall across the bar. This script didn’t translate words, it translated sound, and from this sound was the emotion imbedded in the ritual.

I jumped to my other untranslated scripts sitting upon shelves and shelves dedicated to holding them and took the nearest one to me. It was a short script and simple compared to the one I was currently reading. It took several re-watches of the video to gauge what the script said, but with a little focus, I could hear it in my imagination. It was humble in comparison, yet a happy sound, childlike. The next wasn’t as easy to imagine, but it was exciting and vibrant, and yet another was entrancing, and another soothing, and another fear inducing. I felt so many things just reading these scripts.

Then I stumbled upon two copies of the same sheet, but each was paired with different spoken scripts, one belonging to the same colleague as before, the other belonging to someone working upon the other side of the planet, and I was struck by another realization. It was a universal language. It conveyed emotions, emotions that we could relate to. They had paired these emotions with the words to speak them and they shared these emotions across their languages.

This…

This is how we came to understand a bit more of what they left behind. This script for sound, for raw emotion, changed everything. It’s imprecise but if we can translate something from one spoken script and find it pared with mine and another untranslated spoken script we can learn more of what we don’t understand.

I don’t only mean it’s changed our understanding of them, it’s also changed us. Thanks to my discovery, my people have eagerly embraced a part of an alien culture long since lost. We have adopted this script they created and have begun writing our own sounds. We have embraced the tools they used to make resonate. We have poured our voices into their echoes and made our own. We’ve become a little bit like them. This sound, this…music, we can’t escape it now, it’s a part of us.

Now, like a line in that first song.

Maopopo kuʻu ʻike i ka nani

[I realize your beauty]

Excuse my poorly written idea, it was just stuck in my head all morning and I had to get it out. It should be simple to figure out what the first song is, but if anyone is wondering what I had in mind for the second song discovered, I was thinking Twinkle, twinkle little star. The rest I didn’t give much thought to.

When somebody says that “a man likes to feel like a man,” all I hear is “A man likes to feel superior to you and it’s your job to make him believe it.” 

I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.

Gay culture is wishing you could go all the way back and be yourself from the beginning

Rescue

We discover there’s aliens out there in the cosmos, but their planet is being steadily destroyed by this meteor shower or something and so we strap some rockets on some shit and we jettison off a bunch of space ships– by this point we’d have perfected travel to a certain point but it still takes time to get there-

And a lot of the ships get damaged, a few get destroyed– but we still. keep. going.

And by the time we get there, there’s a very small number of the population left, all hopeless and afraid– and the shuttles are unfamiliar and frightening– but when they start shooting rocks out of the sky and landing with open doors and frantically gesturing for them to come inside-

Some more shuttles are destroyed while shooting rocks to give others an opportunity- some blow up on contact with a particularly large one, that they rammed into so it wouldn’t hit the people still evacuating.

And these aliens, they don’t know what they’ve done to merit this kind of thing, they’re so confused, and we don’t speak the same language, so they can’t ask.

But when we’re finally able to speak to them, in whatever way we can- we tell them-

‘We’ve been waiting to meet you, and we weren’t going to miss our chance.’

(If you already have one like this, feel free to ignore. This just popped into my head)

-unrealromance