The Terror Of MAPSERVER!

They say you should always start by writing the end of your story first.

Anyone here ever heard of A Silver Mt. Zion?  Very very indy group up in Canada.  I can't really do them justice - you have to listen to them yourselves.  I highly recommend you start with their first two albums.

The reason why i bring them up is because I recently listened to their fourth album, Horses In The Sky, and the last few minutes of the first track (starting at the eight minute mark) has this round going:

When the world is sick
Can no one be well?
But I dreamt we were so beautiful and strong.

And so I have this scene in my head of a possible, final fight with Salem...

"So.  Here we are once again.  I never thought I would have someone be an even greater thorn in my side than Oz, but you have never ceased to surprise me, Benjamin."

"You honestly think I'm about to kick the bucket already?" said Benjamin through clenched teeth as he slowly levered himself up.

"Do you honestly think you have much more to give?"

"Salem, you should know by now how capable I am of dissociating.  You'll need to burn me to ashes first.  And your pet fire maiden ain't around this time."

"Hmph.  I can do that just fine on my own."

"Actually, you can't," said Ben with a grin.  "Because we're both Writers here.  The most powerful ones, in fact.  Which means we're pretty evenly matched.  But there's a critical difference between you and me."

"Oh?  And what's that, praytell."

"Haven't you ever noticed how many red strings of fate I got coming off my fingers?  You love no one.  You use people up and discard them.  But every connection I make?  That is something precious to me.  I never abandoned any friend that didn't betray me.  And in return?  They will come running when I call them."

"Your 'friends' are all busy with other things.  I made sure of that this time."

"Then you don't know me very well, Salem.  I've said it once and I'll say it before: Ganesha ain't got shit on me.  I don't just remove obstacles, I fucking obliterate them with extreme prejudice."

"You can't be everywhere at once!"

"No, maybe I can't.  But I'm also more diabolical than you can ever be, even on a good day.  It's not the one 'Me' you should worry about.  Instead, it's the infinite number of 'Me' from all the possibilities to ever exist."

"...no.  That's not possible!  This universe is completely self-contained!"

"Heh-heh-heh.  Like I said.  I'm more diabolical than you can ever be.  And when someone tells me something isn't possible?  That just means that they haven't figured out the cheat that makes it possible.  And I'm all about the cheating."

And then from just about anywhere and everywhere, they start arriving.  His wives.  His children.  His grandchildren.  His brothers and sisters.  His friends.  All of them sent by Benjamins that came from other universes.  The weak ones.  The strong ones.  The dumb ones.  The smart ones.  Each of them was a solution to a particular obstacle that Salem had placed.

And in the mean time, Benjamin is putting out the most powerful anti-magic field he's ever mustered up, burning himself out in order to pull it off, just so that Salem can't launch a preemptive attack on the new arrivals or make an escape.

And the entire time he's doing that, he's singing that round.  And as they all gather, all of them readying their most powerful attacks, they're joining him in the round.

"When the world is sick, can no one be well?  But I dreamt that we were so beautiful and strong."

It's a bit like that line from another one of my favorite songs, "Defend Atlantis" by the Flobots: "Survival, we unified to focus on.  And the voices were many, but we spoke as one."

Salem is defeated.  But a compromise is proposed: a counter-universe to act as a yang to their universe's ying.  Darkness and Light have their own places, though a small bit of contamination (the dots in the ying-yang) is allowed to keep both from stagnating.

In this, true balance is achieved.  Most people in both universes can live good lives.  And there is still need for "Heroes" on both sides.

Whatcha think?

Today's the day to final bring an old idea I had to the table.


-----


From: jet.jaguar@friggarock.fen
to: [Undisclosed recipients]
Date: 01/04/2025
Subj: Our recent charter with the Tsoukalos institute. (Keep this to yourself)

Hi All,.

So, I'm sure you've all heard that Lun was recently charted by Doctor Katsuragi of the Tsoukalos Institute for Extra-Terrestrial Archaeology.  Doctor Katsuragi has been studying the Builder architecture, and has already authoured a number of papers on the ruins of the Arcadian Gate.

While the official announcement is still working its way through the proper channels, I think I can safely share a little preview amongst ourselves. If only because this changes everything

Lun was performing calibration runs over Earth. She detected a Gate Metal signature, which we initially thought was a false positive. A second calibration run with a ten kilogram sample on the lunar surface confirmed the sensors were properly aligned, and that the detection was correct.

There's something under the ice-sheets of Antarctica. And it's something very large, and almost certainly something intact. A basic sounding suggests it's speherical, with a radius of approximately 14 kilometres, with an active Skuldium signature.

Not only is whatever this is intact, but it's drawing sufficient energy off Earth's mantle to provide a strong power signature - detectable from Geosynchronous orbit. We had to be within 10 kilometres to detect the Arcadian wreckage.

Dr. Katsuragi has been encouraged to keep his mouth shut but -  the mundanes are going to have an absolute cat when this gets out and this is always going to get out. We can't exactly sit on this thing forever, can we? Someone is going to leak.

For the time being, I'd like to put together an expedition to go down there and figure out just what the fuck is under that ice - before the planetary gold rush begins and the world powers start tearing themselves apart. Perhaps we can figure out what the hell it was, or is, and what it does?

I've attached an a link to an archive containing Luns findings. Hopefully sharper minds will be able to make something of this. Applications for participants are open - and places are limited. Lun is not a big ship - and if we go down in force we will attract attention.

But this thing could be a new genesis.

-Jet
------

AntarcticFindings.zip

Doctor Who TV (website)

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who...diJ2LCiNpo

Pope Francis apologizes for the church's role in the Canadian residential school system

Thread title is a translation of part of the statement of apology.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/...me-canary/

Basically, another attempt at replacing third party cookies for advertising with their own, baked in, unavoidable tracking profile builder in Chrome. "Google argues that it is mandatory that it builds a user tracking and advertising system into Chrome, and the company says it won't block third-party cookies until it accomplishes that."

Here's the rub, it uses your own computer cycles to do this now.

Okay.  This one just blindsided me, but it's the kind of Muse-Bites-Man thing that you all love me for.

Just after the bit with me posting the lyrics for the Gorillaz "Clint Eastwood", and then the bit about Micheru confronting Ben, The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" jumped into my mind and simply would not go away.

At first, I thought of having my character singing it and have it be a bit of insight Uranus and Neptune gets for his character...

...And then I suddenly realized it would have a HELL of a lot more impact coming from Alicia Testarosa.

The idea here is that this would be during the time that Alicia is under the care of Haruka and Micheru... but because of her empathic bond with Benjamin, as well as her own feelings about what they did to Nanoha and Fate...  Yeah, even though they've had experience in caring for a child (Hotaru), caring for one that actively resents them is a whole different ball of wax.

There are several reasons that this is done.

For one, it's because Haruka and Micheru need first-hand experience in dealing with the consequences of their actions.

Another reason is that Benjamin is in no shape at all to be caring for a child - even one that is as close to him as Alicia is.  He could easily slip into neglecting her in the midst of his depression, and Alicia would simply accept it because she feels what he feels.

Lastly, it's seen as a safe option because it's known that Haruka and Micheru won't do anything to harm her in any way, shape, or form.  And even then, they're under the watchful eyes of everyone else at the Westwoods Apartments.

Haruka and Micheru will try to bond with the girl, but to little avail.  While they have accepted that Benjamin is far more than they can handle, and that they have indeed messed up, it still hasn't really hit home for them yet just how badly they messed up.

One of Micheru's attempts is sharing in her passion of music with Alicia - she's picked up on Benjamin's own passion for music and, with her mathematical genius, had started messing around with mash-ups on a virtual mixer board.  So, Micheru gets her a decent quality mixer board and 24-track recorder.

Imagine Micheru's shock when she pauses outside the door to Alicia's room to hear her singing The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" with even more heartfelt passion and rage than Pete Townsend has ever presented.

And it is only here that they begin to realize.

Alicia is very much her own person.  But that person also includes a good deal of what makes Benjamin the person he is.  This is because while Benjamin's traumas were his own, they now share a trauma between them - the unraveling of Fate and Nanoha's minds.

And with Benjamin's emotional state being what it is?  There are times where she is fully channeling her beloved older brother, and becomes the man himself, only in the form of a little girl.

A little girl with far less self-control than Benjamin, and a very high mage-potential.

There will be a scene where she throws a huge tantrum that looks like a scene out of The Exorcist.  Micheru and Haruka call for back-up and Madoka and Homura come in... only for them to turn around right away and call in Benjamin.

But she is channeling Benjamin's rage so much that she attacks him...  Why?  Because his rage is inherently self-destructive, and what better way to destroy himself than through another person?  Not that this is his conscious feelings, but something on a more primordial level.  Fortunately, no magic because he's got his AMF cranked up.  But as he holds the raging child in his arms, dimorphic expression kicks in and she bites him so hard that she draws blood (the first and only time this will ever happen).  And she stays latched on, not letting go, even after she starts crying.

Benjamin doesn't have to say a word afterward.  He can see it in their eyes.  They now fully understand what it is they have done - how they have nearly ruined more lives than just those of Nanoha's and Fate's.

That night, Benjamin takes Alicia back, caring for her as her big brother.  And the biting continues to occur, as Alicia copes with the intense emotional swings she's experiencing.  Just nowhere nearly as hard as that first bite.

And Benjamin knows the truth behind those bites, because he can feel the emotion through their bond.  One so powerful that he can even hear the words behind it.  The words are not shouted.  They are a gentle and supplicant whisper in his mind, one that leaves absolutely no doubt whatsoever.

i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you...

Poor Inara has her work cut out for her.

Old thread is old

AP story here

Any comment I could make is already made in the article.

... of spoons.



Say hello to Server Tick.

(I blame OpMegs.)

--sofaspud
--also: I finally fixed my login issues!  yay!