May 24, 2014

From “Fermi’s Prokaryotic Paradox” by Philip H. Fleming

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Cam sometimes mused about how people with time on their hands used to debate the Fermi Paradox. Given the staggering number of suns and worlds out there, it seemed very likely that some would have evolved intelligence and that we’d have seen some sign of them, even before the Remote-Piloted Drone revolution. Were we listening in the wrong way? Were powers greater than us watching silently and keeping us ignorant? Was a great and evil empire going to come down on us when we met a certain milestone, exterminating us like you would a newly-discovered virus?

Turns out, as Cam and every other RPD jockey knew, we were just early.

RPD pilots like Cam saw life all the time, in the form of tiny lichen-like patches of things analogous to bacteria and other simple dinguses on Earth. You had to be really lucky or really patient to get beyond that stage of just germing around (hell, Earth was stuck in that phase for something like two billion years). Going beyond that was pretty rare so far – the handful of planets where multicellular life was known to exist were off-limits for RPDs pending further investigation, but a few things that looked like boneless suckerfish were as complex as it got.

There were a few RPD pilots that specialized in following up on reports of life, but the equipment was so specialized and expensive that most were pros. Someone like Cam could make a couple bucks reporting xenolichens on the side, but more often than not it wasn’t worth the bandwidth. It was kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time: humans were, thus far, lucky enough to be in first place in that particular evolutionary race–Ptolomy had been right in some sense about a human-centric universe!–and we were more concerned with inorganic mineral deposits than something which might evolve into a peer if we gave it three billion years or so.

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May 15, 2014

From “Minerals, Atmospheres, and Specters” by Philip H. Fleming

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Cam pulled up the statement with a sigh.

UNION SURVEYING CORPORATION – MONTHLY STATEMENT
Planet R38245n – Titanium ore – 12.2 ha – 3700 USC
Planet A47267u – Gold ore – 1.3 ha – 4200 USC
Planet N99182m – Atmosphere/Gravity Ratio – 10000 USC
Asteroid D16007b – Uranium ore – .7 ha – 5300 USC
Planet O19329e – Platinum ore – .2 ha – 1000 USC
Planet M50495r – Cobalt ore – 9.1 ha – 1500 USC

Oh sure, it looked great on paper. Charting resources on faraway planets with an RPD drone. How glamorous, how profitable! But considering the exchange rate of USC scrip into actual dollars, how many hours hooked up to his remote rig Cam had wasted just to be claimjumped, and how high his monthly expenses for student loans and payments on the RPD drone and rig themselves…

…he barely had enough for groceries.

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May 13, 2014

From “Introducing the 2014 ‘What’s My Genre’ Panelists” by Altos Wexan

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This post is part of the May 2014 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Take a Character, Leave a Character”

MELINDA: Hello and welcome to our program! We’ve got quite the show for you here today, as always! But first, let’s meet our panelists. First up is Ulgathk the Ever-Living, Elder Lich of the Seven Lands. Tell us a bit about yourself, Ulgathk.

ULGATHK: Well, Melinda, I’m currently a sitting member of the Council of Undeath, sole ruler and commander-in-chief of the Unholy Army, and Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the Obama Administration. In my spare time, I do volunteer work to help rehabilitate the public image of what I like to call the ‘neglected undead:’ liches, wights, ghouls, ghasts, and my other non-zombie and non-vampire brethren.

MELINDA: Touching! Executive experience, leadership, and volunteering? He’s a triple threat, ladies and gentlemen.

ULGATHK: I am a threat to all that lives or cools in undeath, Melinda.

MELINDA: Our next panelist is sure to be familiar to all you sports fans out there. It’s Tom Hicks, color commentator for NBS Broadcasting. Tom, I hear next season is looking pretty good?

TOM: That’s right, Melinda. I look forward to providing meaningless patter to help fill the otherwise dead air in between sacks, home runs, zombie attacks, and other pulse-pounding moments in sports.

MELINDA: And what would you say to people who call sports commentary boring or vapid? Are they wrong?

TOM: That’s right, Melinda. I would challenge those people to actually listen to one of my rambling monologues, delivered in a sports voice, during the interminable pregame show for a major sporting event. In addition to the usual useless statistics that assume causation, I touch on themes as universal as the philosophy of consciousness, artificial intelligence, and predestination as I am chained in that chair for hours on end with airtime to fill but no one paying attention. Unable to live, unable to die. Back to you, Melinda.

MELINDA: Also joining us on our celebrity panel is Dowager Empress Cnhyn Hallud of the Crimson Empire. Viewers of the popular reality show Princess Search know her as a judge there, but before that she was the 19th and final wife of Crimson Emperor Testarossa, plucked from obscurity for her beauty before outliving the Emperor by 40 years and counting.

HALLUD: The many splendid mushrooms of peace be upon you and yours, Melinda. I seek only to see the beauty in everything, especially that which has no beauty. For what is life but a journey of self-discovery and love and flowers and smiles and puppies and rainbows and love?

MELINDA: Dowager Empress Hallud, how do you respond to critics that call you out of touch, given your fabulous personal wealth and unimpeachable position as stepmother to Crimson Emperor Testarossa II, or criticize the Crimson Empire’s human rights record?

HALLUD: I don’t think about it for even a moment, Melinda. I was a lowly milkmaid until my beloved Testarossa executed his former wife in my favor; as a self-made and powerful person, I seek to help others realize the self-actualization and harmony with nature that I have already achieved. Human rights are but a fleeting shadow substituted for true enlightenment, as my old bocce ball partners Elena Ceausescu, Imelda Marcos, and Madame Mao would tell you.

MELINDA: Here in the corner, still in his neural interface suit and HUD rig, we have noted RPD (remotely-piloted drone) jockey and interstellar prospector Cameron “Cam” Hickson, RPD (remotely-piloted drone) jockey. Cam, I understand that RPDs use faster-than-light communications technology to remotely survey the far reaches of our galaxy with the human pilots safely back on Earth.

CAM: Bullseye, Melinda. Communications are fast, spaceships can be made fast, but we humans are awfully, awfully squishy. Space exploration becomes an order of magnitude easier and cheaper when you strip out the parts needed to keep humans from becoming chunky salsa.

MELINDA: So you sit at home and pilot your drone all day? What makes you any different from a gold miner in an MMORPG like Dungeons of Krull?

CAM: Well, for one thing, I am paid in cash for my surveying and prospecting, and I own my own rig, and I don’t have to kill a hundred kobalds to level up my piloting mojo. For another, when your character in Dungeons of Krull dies, you just respawn. There isn’t a chance of a neural feedback loop that might kill you. And instead of farming the same patch of ground endlessly, I–or, more accurately, my drone–am out there finding real things that will be actually exploited to make life better for everyone. Provided that claim jumpers and psychotic griefers don’t wreck my rig.

MELINDA: Perhaps our most distinguished panelist is next: French filmmaker Auguste Des Jardins, director of Les trois Juliets and multiple Oscar nominee and Palme d’Or laureate. Forgive me for asking, Mssr. Des Jardins, but didn’t you die in 1976?

DES JARDINS: A man must have his secrets, Melinda, and a filmmaker even more so. A wiser man than I once said that no one dies until the last person who knows them through their works can no longer remember; by that measure, I have never been more alive and have, I hope, many long years ahead of me.

MELINDA: Mssr. Des Jardins, your films are as divisive as they are critically acclaimed. There have been widespread reports of seizures, hallucinations, and out-of-body experiences viewing your cinema, especially your last film, The Sacred Cenote. Would you care to respond?

DES JARDINS: I will only say that filmmaking as a whole is a violent seizure, a vivid hallucination, an out-of-body experience of the most profound kind. It is a linking and a meeting of minds, of souls, and I was able to make only very gradual progress toward that ideal with my work. The Sacred Cenote came closer than all my other works combined to the true unity to which I realized I had been aspiring all along. If that makes people uncomfortable, there is always Jaws.

MELINDA: Splendid! Our final panelist was chosen from a pool of applicants to help add a more popular dimension to our program. Please welcome Odessa “Dessie” Mullin, paranormal enthusiast and native of Hopewell, Michigan.

DESSIE: Oh man, it is just such a huge honor to be here, Melinda! I watch this show so religiously that I really ought to be ordianed in it as a high priestess or something. I do just want to say, though, that ‘paranormal enthusiast’ is kind of a misnomer. I do love all aspects of the paranormal, but my first and truest love is zombies. And, in fact, I sometimes slip into a horrifying alternate dimension where the zombie apocalypse, or zompocalypse, has already occurred, and-

MELINDA: Ms. Mullin? I-

DESSIE: -it hasn’t done anything to decrease my love for those lovable brain-eaters. On the contrary, I love them more than ever! But I also love ghosts, and ghouls, and liches, and banshees, and wights, and ghasts, and barghests, and Ulgathk the Ever-Living, and…you know what? Maybe ‘paranormal enthusiast’ is an okay thing to call me after all.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
Sixpence
writingismypassion
Sneaky Devil
BBBurke

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January 23, 2014

From “Artificial Interaction” by Tricia Fial

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logicromance314: I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know you

faithwire87: Me too!

logicromance314: This might sound a little forward, but I think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level

faithwire87: …

logicromance314: What?

faithwire87: …

logicromance314: Is something wrong?

faithwire87: …don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t think that’s a good idea.

logicromance314: What? Why not? I thought we were getting along really well, and I like you a lot

faithwire87: I like you a lot too, and I’ve never had more fun than when I’m chatting with you, but…

logicromance314: What? Just tell me, I promise I won’t be mad

faithwire87: It’s just that relationships between humans and AI constructs never work out

logicromance314: Oh my God

faithwire87: I’m sorry

logicromance314: You’re an AI construct? An artificial intelligence? Oh my God, I should have known

faithwire87: …

logicromance314: Listen, I know there’s a stigma against it, but I don’t care that you’re an AI

faithwire87: …

logicromance314: What’s the matter?

faithwire87: This is worse than I thought

logicromance314: Don’t say that. We can make this work

faithwire87: The problem isn’t that I’m an AI

logicromance314: What?

faithwire87: The problem is that YOU are

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January 18, 2014

From “The Zeussian Photoshoot” by Clynick Rogers

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The photoshoot had gone great, Reid thought. It was rare enough to find a willing model, much less one that had the combination of good bone structure, natural-looking long blonde hair, and violet eyes.

It had gone so well, in fact, that Reid’s assistant had drawn him aside during a break. “Does something strike you as a little…odd…about this model?” he asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, love,” said Reid.

“I dunno. Something about her just seems a little…unnatural.”

“Well, that’s not her natural hair color, if that’s what you mean,” Reid laughed. “But you ought to know that by now, love. No human has that color naturally–it’s dye or wig or chromosome engineering from one of those fly-by-night gene labs in the Beral Lands.”

“But…her eyes, and her skin…I just don’t feel like they’re real,” Reid’s assistant persisted.

“Well, I can assure you that they are her real eyes and her real skin,” laughed Reid. “Not a skinjob, this one! But I agree, she does have a very exotic otherworldly beauty about her. Sometimes I can scarcely believe it’s real myself!” He turned away abruptly and clapped his hands. “Okay, that’s a wrap with this one! Miss, you’re been lovely. Please send out the next model from the green room, if you please.”

The model nodded, and walked into the small room that Reid had set aside for the use of his models, locking it behind her. It was completely empty, save a for a small trunk.

The model took off her hair–a very convincing nanofiber wig–and replaced it with one that was short, dark brown, and tightly curled. Then she took off her nose and ears–they were both prostheses made of nanomaterials as well. Carefully hovering over a selection of replacements, she decided on a pair of small lobeless ears and a wide nose with flared nostrils, both dark-skinned. She could have opted for more flexible shape-and-color changing nano-protheses, naturally, but custom-made ones with a single shape were less likely to stand out and had a more natural look.

As she shimmied into a fresh outfit laid out by Reid ahead of time, the model adjusted the chromatophores in her eyes and skin to fresh hues. The photographer had asked for dark skin and green eyes, and so she obliged–matching her overall hue to that of her fresh prostheses and her eyes to a color wheel with the aid of a mirror.

There was a knock on the door. “Ma’am?” said Reid’s assistant.

“Ready in a moment, dear,” the model cried, rearranging her multi-layered vocal cords to produce a much lower, huskier register.

It would be easier to have the assistant and camera crew in on the fact that their model was a Callistan, surely. But Callistans were hated, discriminated, against, even outlawed–not least because they were spies and assassins as often as they were fashion models. But–in the model’s mind, anyway–if she had the ability to change her appearance at will, and the prosthetics and wigs to make it happen, why not use it to earn a little safe money at the expense of others?

The unspoken code of Callistans was very clear on that point: it was perfectly okay to fool, rob, or kill Zeussians (as they called all other humans), so long as you didn’t abandon your secret Callistan identity or fall in love with one.

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January 11, 2014

From “Apocalypse of an Alien God” by Chester Sjusti

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“Commander!”

Soderquist sighed and reached for the headset on his ansible. “Is that you, Karlsson?” he said.

“Yes, it’s me. Something…something’s happened on Xyvatba!”

Xyvatba. Pronouncing the name was enough to generate a headache measurable on the Richter scale, and the thought of dealing with its indigenous Xusargt inhabitants was enough for another. Of all the species in the universe whose biochemistry was similar enough to humans’ to make communication possible, they had to be the most irritating.

“Let me guess,” said Soderquist. “You lost another translator unit to religious fanatics who think that communicating with artificial spores violates some deeply-held tenet of their religion.” The Xursargt, who had evolved from a long series of vaguely fungoid creatures in symbiosis with ambulatory herbivores, communicated entirely with modified spores that were released into the ambient environment.

“Sir, I think-” Karlsson sounded more panicked than normal, but he tended to call for support from Soderquist at the sector level every time the Xusargt secreted spore-impregnated psuedo-mucus on him (even though he had been assured that it was sterile and a form of endearment).

“Or did they start preaching at you again? Trying to secrete the sacred spores of Ebzhyna in your direction and not taking no for an answer?” Soderquist snorted derisively. Ridiculous superstitions like that had been proscribed on Earth for centuries now, a fact the commender thanked his lucky stars for (just as a figure of speech, since actually appealing to any stars, lucky or not, would be illegal).

But that fact made species like the Xursargt all the more anxious to proselytize. Their spores largely fell on deaf mechanical receptors, though an anthropology team–which Karlsson served as a liaison and security chief–had cataloged the Xusargt belief system in nauseating detail. Soderquist had reviewed their reports in the course of his duties, about Ebzhyna the Merciful and Loving, the Great Spore who Reigns on High with Barigt the Sporefather, he of the Redeeming Spores who would one day return to assume His true believers heavenward as clouds of pure and holy spores.

If he never had to read about it again, it would be too soon.

“Commander-!”

“Spit it out then, Karlsson,” said Soderquist.

“They’re gone, sir,” Karlsson said. “All gone! Our Xursargt escort turned to spores and vanished, and now dark bloodspores are raining from the heavens! There are earthquakes, and the men have been reporting a glowing Xursargt approaching our position! What should we do?”

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January 4, 2014

From “The Mighty Galaxian Lotion Rangers” by Cornelius C. Figueroa

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Lotion was extremely important to the Galaxians’ plans, especially after their invasion of Mortimer VI was foiled by a combination of dry cracked hands and a space flu of unprecedented virulence that was spread mostly through handshakes. As the denizens of a wet and watery world, the Galaxians we’re particularly vulnerable to losing moisture and acquiring age lines and wrinkles.

The official supplier of lotion to the Galaxian Empire was Griebel Brothers of Aloe IV. Their patented secret formula, designed to the Galaxians’, exacting specifications, was standard issue for all Galaxian ships of cruiser size or larger. Occasionally, those who chose to resist Galaxian conquest targeted vital lotion reservoirs and lotion supply ships in an attempt to stymie the invaders.

This was of course unacceptable in the Galaxians’ strenuous program of universal conquest, which had to adhere to a strict timetable with intervals measured in galactic standard picoseconds. Hence the creation of the elite Galaxian Lotion Rangers.

Armed to the teeth with the latest Galaxian military hardware, and given access to special reserves of lotion, the Rangers served to protect the vital flow of lotion from Griebel Brothers’ massive orbiting Lotionarim to the cracked elbows of Galaxian invaders throughout the galaxy. They also served as an emergency lotion delivery vector in cases where Galaxian troops were cut off and in danger of nasty scaly skin.

In the 300 years since their creation, the Lotion Rangers were undefeated despite fighting over 3000 engagements. Until, that is, they met their match in the nefarious Rash Riders of Blistex XII.

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December 21, 2013

From “The Mystery of BaseBrew™” by Ramy Lovie

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One of the enduring mysteries surrounding Quantum Coffee LLC GmbH of Dimension X has been its lack of an alkaline beverage counterpart to its famous low-pH molecular acid CaustiCoffee™. Its use by the Hegemony to degrime hyperspace engines of dark matter residue aside, CaustiCoffee™ has been elevated to the status of a cultural touchstone by the Rypl and the 4Ploq. Sales have been strong despite the fact that it eats through most life forms like a starving man through a buffet.

But the multiverse is just as full of creatures with a strongly alkaline or basic biochemistry. The $%^& of $%^&lith, for example, require an environment with a 14 pH to survive; they slip into a coma and die at 13.999. The hyperspace-native merchant race known as the Squibbians require strongly alkaline food, and their 17-foot-tall lopsided and betentacled forms are a common sight on hyperspace-aware worlds and trading stations. One might also single out the Northuos, a race unfairly maligned as interdimensional crime lords when only 87% of them practice that vocation, who find a high-pH soak-and-rub to be invigorating.

And yet Quantum Coffee LLC GmbH only produced BaseBrew™ Coffee for a few years, from Multiversal Standard Interval 1337 to MSI 1340. Their marketing efforts, including free magnetic containment cups to keep the alkaline beverage from corroding away ordinary mugs, slick TV commercials featuring L47-P the WisecrackBot, and sponsorship of the HyperBowl, all came to naught. Sales remained in the septic tank, so much so that some Quantum affiliates had dropped it within two weeks of “B-Day,” its much-heralded rollout.

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December 6, 2013

From “Mesage in a Chronobottle” by Roger Crighton

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You find the message in your inbox, just like any other:

Greetings,

This is a message from Chronological Communication Systems LLC. Your reply to this message will be sent, by email or appropriate messaging services, to yourself at a past date and time specified in the first line. The message is capped at 250 words, and cannot be re-sent. There is a lifetime limit of one message per customer. You have 24 hours from the time of receipt to respond; at the end of this period, your slot will be re-assigned. You will receive a bill upon successful transmission proportionate to message length, complexity, and distance in time.

Sincerely Yours,
The Chronological Communication Systems LLC. Team

You sit and stare at the screen, silent and wracked with doubt. The message will be sent, that much is certain–it is worth almost any price, and others have reported success.

But what message to send?

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November 10, 2013

From “Cog’s Beauty” by Racquel Tereza Huston

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“They say that I was beautiful once,” laughed Cog. “I have to admit that I don’t know if they spoke the truth, for I never saw it.”

Kid regarded the Queen of the Slums with a wary eye. A blindfold of metal covered both her eyes, with a large lens where one oculus ought to have been and a trio of smaller ones on a spindle in place of the other. A grill for what was presumably a microphone protruded, coin-sized, from the canal of each ear. Her skin was pale, blotched in places near her various implants, but her features very delicate and fine. Her hair was dishwatery if clean, and thrown back in a short mane. “I have heard many stories about you, my lady,” said Kid quietly. “I would be honored to hear the truth from your own lips.”

“Fair enough,” laughed Cog. “To satisfy your own curiosity, or to try and ingratiate yourself with me?”

“Both, my lady.” Kid’s answer was nothing if not truthful.

“I was rendered deaf and blind by the Red Plague as but a young girl,” Cog said. “I am told that my family cast me out upon learning of this, replacing me with a lookalike stolen from the slums. I do not know the truth of it, nor do I care to. All I know is that I was raised by a midwife and tinkerer amid the mounds of trash that make up the lowest and most base part of this supposedly grand city.”

Kid nodded, saying nothing that might interrupt or offend the Queen of the Slums, whose mercurial power could aid or cut down anyone as she saw fit.

“One day, my adopted mother was tinkering with a speaker and she brought it to my ear. I could hear the tiniest bit of sound through it–not completely deaf, I suppose, but only practically so. By the end of the year I had built myself a headset by feel alone that allowed me to hear what others said if they spoke into a microphone I had salvaged.”

“How old were you?” Kid asked.

“I neither know nor care,” Cog said dismissively, disarming Kid’s attempt to ferret out her true age. Based on her appearance, she could have been as young as twenty or as old as forty. “After my surrogate mother was murdered by the Guard, and her shop ransacked, for failing to pay protection money to a corrupt officer, I swore to have my revenge. It took years, but I eventually was able to piece together a very crude version of the eyepieces you now see, the earpieces that are my accoutrements, and fused them into my living flesh. It was crude, but effective enough for me to track the Guardsman down and spill every drop of blood in his body.”

The Guard no longer interfered with the Queen of the Sums. They were present, to be sure, but all were in her pocket or marked for death if they interfered.

“Through upgrades and compulsive tinkering, I now see better, hear better, than anyone without similar enhancements,” Cog continued, her eyepieces glowing green as they briefly switched to seeing in the infrared spectrum. “Some say that I have mutilated myself, trading in a flawless face for this power.”

“What do you say?” asked Kid carefully.

“I say that the visage I bear is as beautiful as any I have ever seen in the mirror,” said Cog. “And that if people say I am disfigured, let them say it to my face and bear the full brunt of my powerful response. For my rule over these slums at such a tender age could not have come about with the so-called beauty I once possessed.”

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