Hello, my name is Jack

by on November 8, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

So what do we do when the bad guys come calling? We welcome them with open arms, of course. I prefer what the Society for Creative Anachronism still calls a fifty caliber revolver. Yes, it uses gunpowder. And bullets. Lots of bullets. Lots of kinds of bullets. Shotgun shells. Hacker rounds. Stun rounds. Lessons in how to quickly vacate an area via teargas rounds. Lessens in interpretive dance through electrical impulse rounds. To whom it may concern rounds. You name it, I’ve probably fired it at least once. Two or three times just be certain. You know the drill, right? You have to practice if you’re going to be good enough to make a difference when the bad guys come calling. And I prefer to make it a collect call. That way they get to pay all the penalty fees.

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Weylan

by on November 7, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

One important thing to consider about the Weylan is that they are fundamentally a peaceful people. The Albion designed them to be dangerous in battle but to crave peace above all else. That makes them some of the most heavily-armed pacifists in the known galaxy. And it makes Arkadia one of the toughest nuts to crack out there, though that did not stop the Shang from trying during The War. But the biggest reason the Weylan have survived all these years is because they are good neighbors. Many races have built colonies in the surviving habitable systems surrounding them, and they are the heart of a region of calm inside the devastated region of space the Albion once ruled. Most of the other races trust them. That is a very important thing.

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I’m Tired, Boss

by on November 6, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

It seems like it’s only been a few weeks since I’ve said this. I’m tired of all being mean and hurting each other. A country concert. A bike path. A church. We know why the bike path attack happened. The man who did it told us all what self-appointed war he was fighting with that.

But we still don’t why another man attacked the concert in Vegas. And we know even less about it now than we did on day one. This church attack is similar. They aren’t telling us what they’ve found out so far. But whatever the reason, it’s ugly. It’s hateful. It’s hurtful.

And I’m just tired of it all.

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Proxima Centauri

by on November 5, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

We bypassed Proxima Centauri on our way to the Alpha Centauri Binary System. Proxima is a red dwarf star, and even the worst planets in the Binary System were far more easily habitable. Most of biological humanity does not even think about Proxima anymore. It is simply one of the countless number of stars where no one lives. It is a different story for cybernetic humanity. Proxima was the first star our earliest AI probe swarms explored, our first foothold in the stars. The AIs and their cybernetic descendents have never left. They built Proxima into their first Memory World, the location of their first independent storage facility for all the knowledge of their race. Proxima is a far more important system than most people realize, and that is why it is so heavily defended.

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Rhiannon

by on November 4, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

It turns out that Rhiannon isn’t much older than I am. Maybe a few years at most, though nailing down exact times can get a bit tricky when birthplaces are the best part of five thousand lightyears apart. We decided to celebrate our birthdays at the same because…why not? Her people don’t celebrate them like we do, and she’d never had a real birthday party in her life. Not what we’d call one at least. So when my birthday came around, we went out on the town and put our superior metabolisms to serious work. That’s another way of saying we ate and drank a lot. It was a very merry time, I must say. I think the thing that surprised me the most that day was finding out just how much she looked forward to hitting the Hyades. She wasn’t bloodthirsty or anything, but she’d been literally bred, born, and trained for war. And seeing all the people just living on Sunnydale made her realize something. She wanted to end The War as soon as possible so she could enjoy the same life they did. I can think of worse reasons to fight.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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