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James Tomasino
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@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ resides. Mr Swarms lab now contained several homunculus-like
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chimeras, created with the help of the Protectorate and Commander
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Cranium, each floating in their own little jars like horribly
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deformed tadpoles. I have no idea how they were created, but I
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can't imagine it was anything I wanted to know. I want to smash them.
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can't imagine it was anything I wanted to know.
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The Refeshlicator still worked as expected, producing my usual
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tepid coffee infused with the taste of sugar and cream and an
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@ -1 +1,38 @@
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T
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Hyperdrive isn't as interesting as I thought it would be. Most of
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the time here's no reason to look outside your ship. It's like
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riding your velocipede along a country road, all the wildflowers
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are just a blur of color; except there's no color. The beauty of
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the universe comes in rays of light beyond our perception. By the
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time they've been digitized and color-shifted into our visual
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spectrum, they're still not as beautiful and mysterious as the
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composite images you see in text books and magazines.
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I'd die for a magazine. Even at Nalmykian-enhanced hyperspeeds
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we've passed a whole lot of nothing, and the Protectorate's tablets
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don't provide that tangible experience of hands on paper. I wonder
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if the Refreshlicator could make paper, but I don't want to break
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it trying to find out.
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After the Protectorate spread throughout the ship, there were only
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three human-sized portions left to act as its agents in our world.
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One spent the bulk of the time with the team in the lab, and the
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others mostly just sat around. Occasionally I'd engage them in a
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game of chess or something. They were easier to beat than the
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computer at first, but over time every game became a real
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challenge. We're certain they're connected at the quantum level,
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somehow.
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The ship says we're on course to some place called Havion,
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on one of the maps our guests managed to merge into our system.
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Their scout's computer interface got faster by the day, perhaps one
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of the 3 humanoids is shrinking or something. It's hard to tell.
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I've taken special care not to connect my computer into the ships
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since we were first boarded, a complete air-gap. It's not like we
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have the full internet anyhow, just whatever is on the ship's
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computers. There's nothing out there to network with, and it's not
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like the Protectorate had any use for creating games. I doubt
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there's much fun to be had when your collective powers can
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calculate all probabilities on all sides of play. I'm not even sure
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they think of themselves as individuals, what would they compete
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for?
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@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
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As we approached Havion, one thing became glaringly obvious. There
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weren't any planets here. It was a nebula, glistening in the
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darkness, bits of dust and debris clouded the cameras outside the
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ship. The Protectorate seemed disappointed, as much as two and a
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half humanoid blobs could seem. They were not, however, as
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disappointed as Commander Cranium. He was sitting on the floor
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with his head in his hands. The rest of us knew to ignore him in
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times like this.
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Yes, I said two and a half blobs, one of them was clearly shrinking
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as more gold filigree wove it's way in and out of the ship's walls,
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with more shining black eyes. They were everywhere, and I was
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starting to get desperate for privacy. I'm not even sure they're
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eyes. This might all be in my head, it's probably my imagination.
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Nobody else seems worried, Swarm seems to think they're processing
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hubs, The Commander keeps asking himself questions about how neat
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everything is and how it's faster than ever, and Hex is just Hex.
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I'd think she was more melancholy than me, except she's always this
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way. Following her own rhythms, playing the universe like soft
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jazz. That's really the only way I could explain her powers. She
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performs her rituals, but improvises in little ways based on some
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extrasensory perception. It's like she's always listening deep
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inside. She must been listening intently because I haven't heard
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her talk in days, but she's always doing something. Consulting some
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oracle, shifting some energy with an occult hand, traveling on
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alternate planes of existence. Even when she's entirely motionless
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she's doing something.
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She was floating peacefully, in the lotus position, until her eyes
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bolted open and she ran to the control room. The displays folded
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into place to show another small black box in the depths of space.
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Except this one was much smaller than the Nalmykian scout. Black
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tentacles leaped from the hull, reaching towards the monolith. Bits
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of the original hull shone through where the Protectorate wore
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thin and the tentacle reached out and touched
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@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
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0RSS Revenant - Underway /RSS Revenant/1633.txt
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0USS Springfield - LOG ENTRY 00000001 /USS Springfield/log1.txt
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0Quartz - Blue Eyes /Quartz/014.txt
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0Zephyrus - ASR 149982 /Zephyrus/ASR_001.txt
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@ -2,6 +2,63 @@
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<title>Cosmic Voyage</title>
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<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage</link>
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<description>Messages from the human stellar diaspora</description>
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<item>
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<title>RSS Revenant - Underway</title>
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<author>kirch@cosmic.voyage (kirch)</author>
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<link>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/RSS Revenant/1633.txt</link>
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<guid>gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/RSS Revenant/1633.txt</guid>
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<pubDate>Sat, 25 Jan 2020 04:40:31 GMT</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[<pre>
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I awoke to a buzzing, not an alarm, but a tone inside my head. The
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Protectorate had completed several upgrades to the ship, and as we
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studied their history and science and they were studying ours. I
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guess centuries of advancement hadn't sped their analytical powers
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as much as I expected. Perhaps there's a hard wall as to how fast
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the universe can experience itself. I hadn't had any major side
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effects to the tests we've been running on one another, except for
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this tinnitus.
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Biological integrity, hormone generation and modifications,
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pheromonic communication, a list of discoveries had soon filled our
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datastores - which had also been adapted by the Protectorate - the
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efficiency of all our technologies had increased to magical
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proportions. Even Super Hex didn't comprehend exactly how these
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changes worked, but none of our interfaces had changed so we kept
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doing that we've always done.
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Their DNA was 92% similar to ours, after accounting for the fact
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that they had Silicon in the positions where Phosphorus usually
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resides. Mr Swarms lab now contained several homunculus-like
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chimeras, created with the help of the Protectorate and Commander
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Cranium, each floating in their own little jars like horribly
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deformed tadpoles. I have no idea how they were created, but I
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can't imagine it was anything I wanted to know.
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The Refeshlicator still worked as expected, producing my usual
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tepid coffee infused with the taste of sugar and cream and an
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elephant ear pastry. There was no natural dairy in either of them,
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but they tasted as fresh and organic as the finest artisanal
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bakeries back home.
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It's been 2 years since I had last set foot on Earth, and now I had
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started to lose hope of seeing it again; or what's left of it by
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now. Last I heard The Revengerists had prevented the total
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annihilation of Freedonia at the hands of Dr Evilus, but at great
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cost to New Luxembourg. Not that the rest of the planet wasn't a
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total catastrophe, but at least the Artic colonies had stopped
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battling over their borders.
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The Nalmykians had taken us deeper into formerly uncharted space,
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by our calculations we were nearly 40 lightyears away from home;
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and no closer to finding our way back. At least our ship had a new
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opalescent paint job, even if the Protectorate didn't like to be
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referred to as paint. The golden filigree was a nice touch, like a
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more organic rococo; but I couldn't help but feel like hundreds of
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horses were watching me through these peepholes throughout the
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Revenant.
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</pre>]]></description>
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</item>
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<item>
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<title>USS Springfield - LOG ENTRY 00000001</title>
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<author>crusader@cosmic.voyage (crusader)</author>
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