Past Of The Future, Future Of The Past...

Weird dreams make great fanfic fuel.

Four days ago I’ve got another strange dream, although I’ve only remembered (and quickly wrote down) a single scene - Adam getting congratulated by the Sarif while being in a some kind of art-decoed airlock, which wouldn’t look out of place in a  “Hikōkyū 2”. If we go deeper from here, I think, that it’ll be like this:

At unknown moment (presumably, some time after deactivation of the Darrow’s signal and transmission of the Sarif’s message, which’ve resulted in the actions against the “Humanity Front” and gave transhumanists (Sarif Industries included) the upper hand), Deus Ex world got somehow linked to the Pokemon world.

Sarif Industries, being the first who’ve managed to get into the Pokemon world and create a colony of sort in it, are currently more powerful in it, than Illuminati, but sheer amount of conspiracies in both worlds and such may quickly change this. So far, only Sarif Industries and the Illuminati managed to get into the Pokemon world, and no one in the Deus Ex world has enough power to stop theirs progress.

To get a better hold in the Pokemon world, Sarif Industries currently tries to find a new markets in it, going even as far as creating products with systems based on those of theirs aug-products (Typhoon, Glass Shield cloaking system, Rhino reactive armor, Sarif Series 8 energy converter and so on) and providing cyber-services. So far, theirs best selling products are energy converter (which can turn food into electrical energy in a very short amount of time), wearable electrogravity-based Icarus Landing System (fall from any height and land safely) and several lines of Rhino reactive armor (self-explaining). They aren’t selling augmentations in the Pokemon world yet.

Malik and Pritchard are alive and well.

Adam is still working for the Sarif Industries. At the current moment, Adam tries to get some information from the Lawrence III.

Lawrence III did not know he was helping Illuminati, he was just developing an advanced gravity control and an AI systems for a customer, who gave him a lot of a great and valuable artworks (Illuminati are so Illuminati…) in response. To add to this, some of these artworks were not even from the Pokemon world, and that’s exactly what he would want - a something really unique.

Illuminati here are less powerful, than in the original (Jensen’s and Sarif’s actions, as well as actions arranged by theirs allies, delivered a huge blow to the Illuminati), but still are relatively well and kicking. However, they were only the second to get into the Pokemon world and now they have to avoid Sarif’s agents, while plotting new conspiracies. So far, they’ve succeeded in implating theirs agents in the some Teams and hiring Zero and Hunter J.

Because of the whole interworld-link situation, Sarif Industries became a major power in the Deus Ex world and currently is a decent threat to the Illuminati. They also have a lot of agents in both worlds, but still less than Illuminati.

Hunter J is willingly working with Tyrants - Illuminati strike force, happy about her new allies and thinks on getting augmented herself (for free, because Illuminati recognize great potential agent in her). After all, implanted cloaking system, underskin reactive armor, commlink, Icarus landing system, Typhoon explosive system and an arm-installed paralyzer cannon are pretty useful for the Hunter which has no problems with killing those who are trying to stop her. Also, being able to jump from great height (cloaked airship, for instance) and survive landing without even a scratch, while being invisible most of the time, is pretty useful for any Pokemon poacher. Fat paycheck is a nice addition.

Tyrants are pretty happy of their’s new agent, especially because of her stealth airship, which also has enough volume to place whatever they need in cargo bay and still have a loads of space.

Zero is working together with Illuminati scientists, because they’ve promised to help him with a Megarig and a Mecha-Giratina projects. Currently, he is working on AI, gravity control and a ACS (Abilities Copying System) projects. The last is especially important to the Illuminati, because, potentially, they may get powers of Arceus (and other Legendaries) with it. Beforehand, he worked on the interworld portals phenomenon research (the very reason why there are Deus Ex characters and organizations in the Pokemon world), until it was transferred to the Deus Ex-world science team.

Some of the Team Plasma and Team Galactic scientists are Illuminati agents in disguise.

If the events of one of the previous dreams are taken in the account, Team Cipher is working very closely with Illuminati, have created theirs own underwater fortress (disguised as an oil development station) with some Deus Ex technology installed in it (Hyron Project included) and currently are experimenting with Shadow Pokemon. So far, they’ve managed to get XD-??? (Shadow Lugia) to be able to disguise itself as a human and talk without usage of the telepathy.

I’ll post more later. If I’ll get really lucky, I may have another weird dream with even more events like this.

@blackjackgabbiani​, what do you think about it?

Mostly because of the lack of gravity, which opens a tons of a new possibilities.

Why Sequencing DNA in Space is a Big Deal

… And How You Can Talk to the Scientists Who Made It Happen

Less than one month ago, DNA had never been sequenced in space. As of today, more than one billion base pairs of DNA have been sequenced aboard the International Space Station, Earth’s only orbiting laboratory. The ability to sequence the DNA of living organisms in space opens a whole new world of scientific and medical possibilities. Scientists consider it a game changer. 

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who has a background in genomics, conducted the sequencing on the space station as part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. A small, commercial, off-the-shelf device called MinION (min-EYE-ON), manufactured by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the UK, was used to sequence the DNA of bacteria, a virus and rodents. Human DNA was not sequenced, and there are no immediate plans to sequence human DNA in space. 

(Image Credit: Oxford Nanopore Technologies)

The MinION is about the size of a candy bar, and plugs into a laptop or tablet via USB connection, which also provides power to the device. The tiny, plug and play sequencer is diminutive compared to the large microwave-sized sequencers used on Earth, and uses much less power. Unlike other terrestrial instruments whose sequencing run times can take days, this device’s data is available in near real time; analysis can begin within 10-15 minutes from the application of the sample.

Having real-time analysis capabilities aboard the space station could allow crews to identify microbes, diagnose infectious disease and collect genomic and genetic data concerning crew health, without having to wait long periods of time to return samples to Earth and await ground-based analysis.

The first DNA sequencing was conducted on Aug. 26, and on Sept. 14, Rubins and the team of scientists back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston hit the one-billionth-base-pairs-of-DNA-sequenced mark.

Have more questions about how the Biomolecule Sequencer works, or how it could benefit Earth or further space exploration? Ask the team of scientists behind the investigation, who will be  available for questions during a Reddit Ask Me Anything on /r/science on Wednesday, Sept. 29 at 2 p.m. EDT. 

The participants are:

Dr. Aaron Burton, NASA Johnson Space Center, Planetary Scientist and Principal Investigator

Dr. Sarah Castro-Wallace, NASA Johnson Space Center, Microbiologist and Project Manager

Dr. David J. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center, Microbiologist

Dr. Mark Lupisella, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Systems Engineer

Dr. Jason P. Dworkin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrobiologist

Dr. Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, Associate Professor

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 1.

More than 3000 years ago, in the Soris region, there was a great Soris Empire.

Thanks to lack of Apricorns in Soris and low cooperativeness of local Pokemon, as well as abundance of easily-acessed metals and fossil and fissil fuels, Soris people took a technological way of development. Several centuries later, a Soris Empire springs into existence.

Unlike what you will think, this empire, at it’s peak, was pretty diesel/atompunk heavy and most of the electronics were based on higly-advanced vacuum tube technology, though transistors and arcane science devices started to slip in near the end of the empire. They also had nuclear-powered transport, including icebreakers, submarines and even rigid-hull hydrogen-lifted dirigibles!

The single most beloved Pokemon species in the later Soris Empire was introduced Alolan Flygon line, thanks to their weather-adaptational ability (like this of Castform) and great cooperativeness towards humans. Nowadays, these dragons has somewhat diverged from the original line and became Soris Flygons, which, while retaining abilities of their Alolan ancestors, have also gained minor Aura abilities (which they use to locate their prey and as a darkvision of sort) and are constantly migrating from one part of Soris region to another (however, they do this only in small herds, so each part will have some Flygons coming in, some staying and some coming out), so they will not get stuck in one form, like the Hoenn Flygons did. The most prominent changes of Soris Flygons are longer antennaes, which are crucial in Aura reception and are forked in two roughly in the middle, the lower part of antennae being shorter than a upper one, slightly different shape of wings and, surprisingly, more omnivorous digestive system, because such is life in Soris - hard and complicated.

These cute, but powerful insect-dragons were the reason why, after the fall of Soris Empire and subsequent loss of technology, humans has managed to survive in this region and, eventually, rebuild.

One of the greatest achievements of the Empire were Imperial Science Facilites, which were researching lots of things - physics, genetics, chemistry and so on. The main jewel in this crown was Imperial Science Facility 9 - the single biggest and most powerful of this line, which also had early arcane science as a main direction of the research, although not the only. More than 90% of this base were located deep underground to prevent outbreaks and protect it against attacks, when the ground had only a Bioscience Division’s surface labs (mostly for studying extraregional Pokemon), Astronomical Dome, material sorting and transport complexes, as well as some recreational sub-facilities.

This facility was constructed to be self-sustainable and able to survive for centuries without maintenance, if properly conserved. Because of this, the main energy source of this facility was complex of closed-circuit geothermal reactors, which could provide up to 1200MW of electricity and were cooled by the oceanic water, which was pumped from pretty far away, to reduce chances of detecting the facility itself. The secondary energy sources were several nuclear fission reactors, capable of providing up to 900MW each, although two of them were mostly used to empower some of the science equipment directly.

One of the main energy hogs in this facility, as well as in Imperial Science Facility 8, was early arcane science equipment, especially irradiation chamber (in which first Mega Stones and some artificial Evo Stones ever were created) and tseryobla (teleportation device. Why it was named so? Even creators, when they were alive, could barely remember it, because all memories of the night when it happened were way too obscured by the alcohol fumes). One of the most important devices, which were crucial to functioning of the rest of arcane science equipment, were highly advanced two-way energy converters, which could not only turn Pokemon life energy into electricity (like Devon Inc. and some of the Nikola’s devices did), but turn electricity into life energy as well! Because of these converters and abundance of electrical energy (thanks to geothermal and nuclear reactors), facility had no need to use Pokemon as a “fuel”, so, no “Powered by a Forsaken Child” for you! After the fall of the Empire, data on how to create and maintain these converters, as well as most of the converters themselves, was lost, and the only surviving units and documentation are in the sealed away ISF9, which is pretty much guaranteed to finally fall apart in this century. Chances of this facility, and, because of it, technology getting re-discovered and restored are... slim, at best.

It was also the facility in which first artificial mechanical pokemon ever was created. Constructed by one of the leading arcane scientists and named “Chugun” (”Cast-iron”), this guy (psychological gender of the Chugun is male) quickly became intergral part of the personel, because he was truly great at task he was created to do - repairing and maintaining things. Having powerful and resilient body, which was also very easy to repair and modify, Chugun was always ready for performing different jobs - from helping planting tunneling explosives to saving people from the gassed or burning room to working in the operating reactor pool to hermetizing steam mains to soldering electronics and so on. In fact, he was beloved so much, that when one of the revisors came to this facility and ordered to dismantle Chugun, because he thought of him as too dangerous, Dr. Pobegov, which was in charge of the Imperial Science Facility 9, threatened to perform a skull trepanation and subsequent lobotomy on the revisor if he does not shut up. When this revisor reported this to the Emperor, he got following answer: “Imperial Science Facility 9 reports directly to me. You were sent to it to find a problems and report them, not to express your opinions left and right. In fact, I think Dr. Pobegov was right about what to do with you.”

Chugun was also the first sentient, on whom tseryobla was tested, and he has volunteered for this! Of course, some tests were performed beforehand on non-sentients (lab Ratattas, heh), but most of the time, after the tests, workers had to wash entire test lab out of bloody pulp, which was sprayed everywhere. Thankfuly, during the test with Chugun, when tseryobla malfunctioned (yet again), there was only teleport-throwing in random places, including even the Reverse World (Giratina was quite surprised, when she saw strangely-looking glowing mechanical Pokemon briefly appearing and, before she even had a chance to finish her question, vanishing again), for five hours (but for Chugun, it was like five years, though he knew what he has volunteered for), after which, however, entire tseryobla crew was hospitalized because of excessive arcane energy exposure. Thankfully, amount of data, gathered in this experiment, was more than worth it, because it finally allowed to find a safe settings for tseryobla and ensure safe teleportations. Moreover - the required data was gathered in less than an a hour, and the rest of the time was dedicated to stabilizing Chugun in the ISF9′s tseryobla and safely extracting him from the teleportational “vortex”, because if they’ve simply pulled the plug, he would’ve got scattered across the teleportation places - all of them. As you can see from it, they’ve really held him in high regard.

When the Empire was at it’s last days, the ISF9 had undergone conservation procedures and Chugun was tasked with maintaining it until someone comes. For more than a 3000 years he was fulfilling his duty, but now, fuel for nuclear reactors was burned off ages ago, replacements are almost ceased to be, so he is forced to cannibalize whatever he can from reserve systems to maintain main ones in (barely) working condition, the main steam turbine complex, which provides power to the base, has lots of leakages, which he barely manages to patch... To put it in short, right now, base can survive no more than a fifty years on remaining reserves. Chugun understands it, but still continues to do everything he can, hoping, that one day, someone will excavate buried entrances to the facility and restore it to it’s full glory.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

(Funny fact - initially, fic Chugun was created after watching humoristic re-dub of Half-Life 2, called Kayf-Life 2, where Alyx’s Dog robot became, well, Chugun, which was originally created for straightening rails, but, thanks to faulty AI, has escaped from the factory and took refuge in the Budulai’s illegal undeground workshop. Also, Kayf-Life’s Chugun was a champion in throwing trash bins at the distant moving targets, but got disqualified after he has thrown one of the bins at the referee. What’s this all about - after I’ve thought of Chugun, my “train” of ideas has gone like this:

“So, mechanical Pokemon, which looks like it was assembled from the junk, but is pretty powerful and reliable and needs to be called Chugun. How to write it in? Hm, what about Russia-like region? Pretty good idea, actually, but it needs some non-obvious name. Riso? No. Rosi? Definitely no! Soris? That’s great! Hey, but nowadays, no one manufactures Pokemon like this, so, it needs to be ancient! Yes, ancient arcane science Soris mechanical Pokemon. That’s good. But just how ancient? Hm, let’s see... The first traces of arcane science originate back to Ancient Kalos War, AZ had some cool arcane tech... So, more than 3000 years old it is! Also, why not plan it in such a way, that AZ gained some of this tech from one of the crashed airships, which were escaping from the Soris during the Legendaries rampage? I’ll roll with it. And Nikola... Nah, he has developed the arcane technology again without any help from AZ or data from Ancient Soris Empire. Back to Chugun: where would he be created and what for? Let’s think again: he would be great at repairs, he would be first and, unfortunately, only of his kind with some small hope for building new in the modern time... His creator would be one of the arcane scientists from the huge science facility. What this facility would be like? Well, Ancient Soris Empire, as I’ve written in my notes about the underground base beforehand, is already planned to be atompunk, so... Ancient Soris Empire atompunk arcane science-heavy Black Mesa-like facility. That’ll be awesome.”

In short, entire region and ancient empire in it were created just because I thought of backstory of one of the planned characters and origin of the ancient underground complex.)

ISF9 Chronicles, part 2

Compulink connection failure.

Restart?

Restart sequence initiated.

Connection re-established.

Continue from the last point?

Continuing..

Accessing “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile…

READ ONLY

Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

16.05.419 AFE

The Physics Division is amazing. Today, I saw result of their cooperation with Production and Arcane Science Divisions. Basically, they’ve wanted to create the most powerful laser unit in the world... and they’ve succeeded. That wouldn’t be much of a problem, since they’ve also created absorber shield for it, but someone has forgotten to link it to the control system and, because of improper carrying, jammed the mechanism. Once the laser was activated, the shield was supposed to be lowered... but it didn’t. Laser coudn’t be disengaged until the firing procedure is complete, or else it would’ve been damaged beyond repair and/or blown up. In short, there is now a pretty big hole in the 2.5 meter-thick wall, as well as wall behind it, along with some of the molten concrete mass damaging the non-organic matter reprocessors (which are used for recycling junk). Needless to say, the Managers of those Divisions, as well as the Director of the Facility, are not pleased. Although, I need to say, this laser unit was really powerful.

20.05.419 AFE

Found out what the Lab 12 from Chemistry Division was up to. Apparently, this was a great project, one to unite all Divisions... and it was a moonshine apparatus. Still, all of the Divisions participated in creating it: Chemistry Division calculated the most optimal way to produce and refine the liquid, Bioscience Division grows the best components and produces basic mash, Production Division, along with Physics Division, build the apparatus itself and Arcane Science Division adds some unique filters to drive out remains of methanol, acetone, aldehydes and such. 

23.05.419 AFE

Today, the advanced Earth monitoring satellite “ReconSat 3″ was launched from our facility. Why is it important enough for me to write about it in my log? Because I also worked on this satellite, tweaking the reaction wheel control system. I’m proud of participating in the Imperial Space Program, even if such a way. What this sat will do? It’ll allow us to monitor arcane energy readings in most parts of the world (the satellite network for total monitoring is yet to be completed). It’s also powered by the small nuclear fission reactor, which is considered a masterpiece of both Physics and Production Divisions.

30.05.419 AFE

The satellite has got first pictures of Unova region. The unique strain of arcane energy, dubbed “Dragon Force” by arcanists because of possible link to the Unova’s Great Dragon (Bioscience is yet to give it official name), is a pretty interesting phenomenon, especially because there are three easily distinguishable “patterns” in the singular “flow”. There is also some weather-influencing field, but the “flows” here are separate.

12.06.419 AFE

The first month of my work in the Facility has ended. To be honest, I’ve never expected it to be like this. I thought it would be great, everyone working for the better future the best they can... Instead, from what I’ve seen, there’s chaos, where the research plans are merely guidelines, everyone does whatever he/she wants, people band together into interest groups, equipment gets misused major time, the Divisions are cooperating and competing with eachother at the same time... And, somehow, IT WORKS. From what I see, the way superiors treat Facility is “dump them funding, equipment and general plans - they’ll make it”, while the Director and Divisional Managers overwatch the personnel to ensure they won’t go too overhead. And they succeed in doing what the outside world wants from them. You know what? Screw this, I’m going in! If you can’t stop it - side with it!

End of the “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile has been reached.

Access the next datafile?

Weird dream is even weirder

Today, I’ve had a even more weird dream than before. Like a previous one that I’ve wrought about, it was mostly composed of random events, but I remember a Cipher agent (who happened to be a Shadow Lugia, cloaked somewhat like a Latias in the movie) teaching me and a lot of other people lesson about a Shadow Pokemon creation process, while I was silently hacking a computer, which was on my table, complete with Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s hacking GUI. For some reason, I was required to cancel the hack, and that was the moment when “teacher” revealed his true nature, but, unlike most people would expect, it was non-violent - he was very close to the Shadow Pokemon’s dex depiction and had next to no emotions, although his true form’s vocal voice was pretty threatening because of how growling it was, but his reveal of his true form felt like it was “me as example” moment. Fortunately, no panic began, so the lesson continued. Also, I remember some moments with Faridah Malik/Adam Jensen relationships in different places, which’ve implied, that he completely broke up with Megan Reed, who’ve cheated on him with Jaron Namir and Bob Page, and fell in love with “fly-girl”, which he’d saved a year or so ago, and, according to some data passing by, it was after David Sarif’s ending. Also, there was a moment with a big underwater map, on which was depicted a lot of things: fallen rockets (including two “Energia” rockets with boosters and “Buran” orbiters still on them), sunk ships and, most interesting, some Xbox huge underwater installation, which was marked as an oil development station, but left impression of a some kind of Cipher’s fortress complete with Deus Ex Panchaea technology, specificially, Hyron Project. Looks like I’ve played way too much Deus Ex and Pokemon yesterday.

Just look what I’ve managed to find! Although Articuno here is closer to his final version, Hikokyuu here is still pretty similar to Robur’s “Terror” from “Master of the world” and Melody still have a lute. I’ve found this here: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/goo20030407/e/23e284ab36b13f27f0fc8688279125ff . Now, if only someone translates the page...

The one in the "I told you to call me daddy" image is Palmer and he's talking to Barry. You know, the one person who could call him daddy and have it not be weird.

I’m not sure what are you about, but OK, thanks for the info.

Yeah, I’ve totally forgot about the Type:Full project. IIRC, Wicke was intervening with Lusamine’s Ragyo Kiryuin tendencies, but was able to do only so much. She was the one, who’ve helped Gladion and Lillie to escape, by the way.

Second theory about lack of Aether Pikachu - because Aether Foundation was officially registered and considered as, well, Foundation, and not another criminal Team.

Pikachu Villain Figures from the Pokemon Center

IIRC, only female Salandites can evolve.

How do I evolve Salandit? Is there a trick to it? High Life is level 41 and nothing has happened. How about Charjabug?

@ pkmn-trainer-touko-tajiri

Don’t you mind, if I write a fic about this? With links and everything, of course!

so this one time, I had a great idea for pokemon fic.

It was basically about this older gruff jaded trainer who finds a little kid wandering around the route, calling for his fearow. Like little tiny babby’s first time training trainer.

So he asks the kid ‘Yo kid, you lose your starter or somethin’?”

Kid: “Yeah, it’s my fearow, he flew off after some raticate and now I can’t find him.” Older trainer’s like goddamn, who gets a kid a fearow as a starter?

“Your parents uh get you that fearow?” Cause he’s gonna have some words with this kids parents if that’s the case. Kid’s still like looking in trees and bushes and shit.

“No, caught ‘em myself out by the powerplant, saved up and bought the greatball myself and everything!” Kid’s super proud of that, meanwhile the older trainer’s thinking, weird, there’s no fearow out by the power plant, meh, maybe one flew there by accident.

Long story short, it’s not a fearow. A storm front rolls in and the kid’s like, ‘welp, there’s my fearow. Finally.’ Older trainer gets the heart attack of his life when fucking zapdos lands next to this kid out of a goddamn thundercloud and starts preening little kid’s hair.

“That’s not a fearow.” Is the only thing older trainer can say.

“What are you blind or something mister?” Says the little kid. “He’s got the spiky fearow feathers and everything. I can’t believe you call yourself a trainer. Come on Fearow, let’s go find a real trainer to battle.”