(drafted and backed July - Sept 2019)
___
________
Death be wise to the living fool.
~ the ghosts of kashikoi ~
________
___
"! Reverberations !"
"! Reverberations !"
(Pipsiveya voiced over from 'The Rough Storybook')
A
planet explodes. The tectonic shards are thrown spinning outward,
distant glimpse of cities erupting and escape ships fleeing, some
failing, few succeeding.
Time
speeds as though the shards' inertia never slows. They part and fan
out while another planet, lush with bright spots of civilization passes
through the forming wide asteroid belt.
The
passing new asteroids are drawn into its gravitational pool, bright
spots going out as escape swarms again as tiny dots. As the planet
passes in it's arc, an asteroid misses and is thrown into space,
tumbling on toward the next.
Slowing into real time as it
enters the atmosphere.
('Mama Said Knock You Out' (undefeated remix) by LL Cool J)
('Mama Said Knock You Out' (undefeated remix) by LL Cool J)
The long arc of its entry over a single massive continent, green and mountainous, set in an otherwise watery world.
~ Gaea ~
In the Era of Kron
A caravan of stout machine walkers passes its distance, mechanisms designed from the herd of dinosaurs surrounding as homes. Platform side panels hang open as floors to inner fire-pits and cookery, sleeping surrounded.
The
molten core melds its irons and nickels with the carbon of ionic
burn, caught in cratered vats along the surface before burning off,
leaving the surface from porous to smooth, then hard cratered after a
flare-through.
Deeper into the core caverns, the ingredients bubble hot. Ionic shots like sparks as the the surface collapses across then breaks off into fletchet chunks caught in the pull to follow fanning out.
Deeper into the core caverns, the ingredients bubble hot. Ionic shots like sparks as the the surface collapses across then breaks off into fletchet chunks caught in the pull to follow fanning out.
From the surface anti-air engage, chipping off pieces but remaining the core.
Mountain view incoming, what remains is now more molten than stone. The
flash explosion burns through the trees of the surrounding wood,
bending them to sharp angle, a wave of ash pouring from the furthest green
edges still green.
A caravan of stout machine walkers passes its distance, mechanisms designed from the herd of dinosaurs surrounding as homes. Platform side panels hang open as floors to inner fire-pits and cookery, sleeping surrounded.
Long
steely feathers mixed with shorter (six foot) red ones decorate the
machines, the beasts painted one rider in front on triceratops, painted
to match, watching through the scope of his rifle (Qetzo).
Doors begin pulling closed.
They walk among herbivore dinosaurs, 'dragons', mostly short pack walkers with the two adult
long-neck in herd and their child, raising heads and looking back as the ashen mist passes.
The sound comes after with an ashen gust.
賢い
('Kashikoi' ~ means 'wise')
Song
over, the boom's rumbling echo
fading. A pressure gust brings the trailing last wisps of ash and dust
through the Gaeani valley before a long silence across a makeshift and
temporary loading platform.
Load workers, armed and armored but independent of one another are stopped in chatter concerning the flash before returning to labors in and from a medium bulk cargo carrier, refitted for war.
Standing on the hill watching over in the open wind, a woman wrapped in deep red bandages of blood's color aged by dust over goggles and re-breather. Rifle on her back wired to her goggles, she watches the valley's loading platform, view blurred through one eye's zoom.
Load workers, armed and armored but independent of one another are stopped in chatter concerning the flash before returning to labors in and from a medium bulk cargo carrier, refitted for war.
Standing on the hill watching over in the open wind, a woman wrapped in deep red bandages of blood's color aged by dust over goggles and re-breather. Rifle on her back wired to her goggles, she watches the valley's loading platform, view blurred through one eye's zoom.
A
dark coat over, a belt clipped with ammo and a small pistol for
reserve, a blade strapped handle down over the sternum. Her right
goggle-piece with open fittings, the left is scoped and wired to the
back of the belt beneath the coat.
Hunter - (voiced over, re-breather adding a nearly hypnotic reverb and flange effect over harsh crackle) "The wise say that Yin teaches in temple libraries, that power is knowledge."
Hunter - (voiced over, re-breather adding a nearly hypnotic reverb and flange effect over harsh crackle) "The wise say that Yin teaches in temple libraries, that power is knowledge."
~
At the base of the valley, mercenary in unmatched appearance, they load
holed crates into the cargo bay of a ship, grass landed.
Hunter - (vo) - She pulls and preps the rifle, bandage wrap all the way down her arms. "While the wise of more worldly
temples say that Yang preaches in gamblers' dens, that power is money."
~ In the nearby wood-line, a bird flies from a bush, a smooth line seen.
~ A D'Wa-kil (true Dwarven) sniper in the bushes, unmoving and barely visible, covered in bush. The lightest movement of a heavy finger over a button to over the trigger's guard.
A tiny light next to it lights, the color of sunlight on green in shadows.
~ In the nearby wood-line, a bird flies from a bush, a smooth line seen.
~ A D'Wa-kil (true Dwarven) sniper in the bushes, unmoving and barely visible, covered in bush. The lightest movement of a heavy finger over a button to over the trigger's guard.
A tiny light next to it lights, the color of sunlight on green in shadows.
Hunter - (vo) - "So what is wise ? Everyone can tell you that. Everyone always knows what you should do. And they'll tell you. All the time"
~ The same light appears on another sniper's scope, marking the
position.
Hunter - (vo) - "And they will say ... and they will say ... and they will say ... so many things ..." She puts her goggle eye to the scope, locking it in.
~
Another sniper's scope triangulates the locations of the six other
snipers with his own, then the sighted mercenaries marked for each in
threes. The bird lands on his barrel.
He smiles. It chirps and flies.
Thumbs a switch and the scope mag-locks into her goggle eye, moving with her subtitles. The other snipers start pinging in with their targets by threes. She scopes through the ship's cockpit to the pilot checking the panel normally.
Thumbs a switch and the scope mag-locks into her goggle eye, moving with her subtitles. The other snipers start pinging in with their targets by threes. She scopes through the ship's cockpit to the pilot checking the panel normally.
Hunter
- "But it's always something DIFFERENT !"
The pilot flops back hard in the chair bouncing back forward over the controls and headless, seen through a hole in the thick port glass melting in a growing circle as the shot is then after heard.
Simultaneous shots echo through the valley as seven mercs fall among
the loaders. Another seven. Another, all matched to the first echo's
pulse.
The
last trails of gusting ash rolls past to a further distant launch pad
with it's dull aftershock to the last echo. A contrary gust in the
gather as a similar ship takes off
before jumping away causing another discordant wisp, dragging the
outward engine smoke and debris storm violently inward to the point of
it's departure with a twist to nothing.
View out
to space, past the pelted planet, lights gone then the forming
asteroid belt. A black ship, seen in space only where it blanks the
stars and by the light of rocket fire sent and returned, finishes a well and brightly decorated war-cruiser.
The cruiser dips it's bow helplessly toward the nearing planet, hull showered with guided mines into high atmospheric destruction as the black ship jumps away spiraling off a distracted mine.
The cruiser dips it's bow helplessly toward the nearing planet, hull showered with guided mines into high atmospheric destruction as the black ship jumps away spiraling off a distracted mine.
Jupiter's eye passes view, a well structured base at it's core, the nature of the eye cloud surrounding it appearing sub-atmospheric, a chemical oasis in the surrounding gasses. Sifting craft with broad sails collecting pass beneath the drifting view.
Ending
over Nibiru, the
civilization as once was.
The departing ship from Gaea ports back into view with a hard decompressing gust dragging ash from Gaea over the wide central street made for entry, on the other side of the gate from 'Gaslight'. Heavy fans beneath the porous street draw the clicking detritus and smoke down from the air as it turns for distant docking toward the high towers.
________
____
Techno-primitive is a word, and I just made it up ~
The resulting civilization old enough to have used up it's unique resources but established enough to continue without collapse, while maintaining it's technological stability.
The technology becomes honed into a nothing wasted mentality, with parts fitted for multiple function. A 'plug and play' civilization, in all ways very durable. Hard steel become yellowed nearly as brasses over aeons of smog and life, smog now gone from the air with the burning off of local resource, life remaining.
Deep hued stones with intentionally placed natural green flowing over in flower. High bridges connecting low buildings, here an inspiration for the schools and temples of Sanctuary can be seen. Towers grow higher from the main streets, out to nowhere.
The people are mostly human then humanoid, with the ruling class and temple high priesthood distinctly and universally alien of Apollo's kind. The people would be called 'Nibiri', while the aliens unknown. They simply are, and are referred to as such. Everyone knows.
By our standards the majority of the populace would be considered upper middle class, with only the royalty and court considered rich, and other worlds poor. Happy cattle before the war, but a fearful elevation after.
All is peaceful, but as the result of regrowth immediately after a massive war won which never touched close. A desperate calm, an exhausted joy driving back home with hope to normalcy.
The tone of a place.
The departing ship from Gaea ports back into view with a hard decompressing gust dragging ash from Gaea over the wide central street made for entry, on the other side of the gate from 'Gaslight'. Heavy fans beneath the porous street draw the clicking detritus and smoke down from the air as it turns for distant docking toward the high towers.
________
____
Techno-primitive is a word, and I just made it up ~
The resulting civilization old enough to have used up it's unique resources but established enough to continue without collapse, while maintaining it's technological stability.
The technology becomes honed into a nothing wasted mentality, with parts fitted for multiple function. A 'plug and play' civilization, in all ways very durable. Hard steel become yellowed nearly as brasses over aeons of smog and life, smog now gone from the air with the burning off of local resource, life remaining.
Deep hued stones with intentionally placed natural green flowing over in flower. High bridges connecting low buildings, here an inspiration for the schools and temples of Sanctuary can be seen. Towers grow higher from the main streets, out to nowhere.
The people are mostly human then humanoid, with the ruling class and temple high priesthood distinctly and universally alien of Apollo's kind. The people would be called 'Nibiri', while the aliens unknown. They simply are, and are referred to as such. Everyone knows.
By our standards the majority of the populace would be considered upper middle class, with only the royalty and court considered rich, and other worlds poor. Happy cattle before the war, but a fearful elevation after.
All is peaceful, but as the result of regrowth immediately after a massive war won which never touched close. A desperate calm, an exhausted joy driving back home with hope to normalcy.
The tone of a place.
____
________
________
A harsh vector graphics style readout, dull blips tracking an
asteroid's arc to Gaea. The tech is aesthetically based on what we
thought 'the future' would look like, back in the eighties.
Screens with magnifiers, hard switches next to clackety keyboards of dull brass materials directly from Vulcan's way in 'Sabine Tale'.
Screens with magnifiers, hard switches next to clackety keyboards of dull brass materials directly from Vulcan's way in 'Sabine Tale'.
The walls are broad doors between pylons, swung open to the surrounding
park terraces filled with distant training and passage, docking fliers taxing those here and there.
A
partially armored
man, the pieces suited to flexibility, sits in a library at a console
lined with users similarly garbed among those perhaps more an officer
class, seated and searching books throughout.
Fingers
tap on the table top, a pause then a final switch. Data uploads to the
screen, hard cam of the attack ship. The stars blacked out in it's
passing, flashes of hull in the exchanging fire. Fingers tap ...
A harsh image of 'the hunter' onscreen, taps ... an image of equal poor quality next to, compared to the hunter, marked 'Arsinoe'.
A harsh image of 'the hunter' onscreen, taps ... an image of equal poor quality next to, compared to the hunter, marked 'Arsinoe'.
He pulls a
cord from his belt and plugs it into the machine, takes the data,
uploads a search parameter.
A glance around, he enters the algorithm manually (via the Lorentz Contraction Theorem run at bell curve acceleration for pure nerd joy). He pulls a map depicting a theoretical landing site, the simplest out of main port over the planet.
Crosses with sat data from three years before, tracking asteroids from the destroyed planet. Then 12 years before, the ship's calculated landing.
Compared to the meteor's impact.
A satellite over Gaea looses star-sight, then regains. He pulls the cord.
A glance around, he enters the algorithm manually (via the Lorentz Contraction Theorem run at bell curve acceleration for pure nerd joy). He pulls a map depicting a theoretical landing site, the simplest out of main port over the planet.
Crosses with sat data from three years before, tracking asteroids from the destroyed planet. Then 12 years before, the ship's calculated landing.
Compared to the meteor's impact.
A satellite over Gaea looses star-sight, then regains. He pulls the cord.
('Bot' by Chuck D)
Out the library and through the open walkways.
The parks
filled with line and filed warriors in training, open halls mingled with librarians
and philosophers, more warriors to task. It can be noted the
older the more scarred, the greater likelihood of mechanical limb and
plating.
Comparable to the Timepiece crew.
As he walks through, the tone of a war
recently won, that subtle arrogance while surrounded by the evidence of
it's losses. A quietude which an outsider would call perfection, in
ignorance.
Vehicles
more likely a brass than steel, an opulent society, but with the
tone of cost. Beautiful vehicles looking a bit too old to those who
would know, a world where all the hovering sports cars are dinged.
Nearly the same as seen in Gaslight even so long ago, but as if a prior
evolution more than the latter being a technological advancement, these
seeming more alive and herded above, feeding at the ring.
A
weather controlled environment with no need of concern for fluctuation,
as evidenced by the ring arcing over in the sky, the clouds wisping
from it among the docking warships.
The young warrior monk walks into the nearby connected housing, his home. The walls like the rest are open, with walkways
across to other buildings and the personal dock, air traffic passing above and below.
Past a
computer console with a sword stuck through the monitor and into the wall
behind, to the wall of weapons. Pistols, well bayoneted go to the
legs, go-bag followed by the sword's empty sheath at the side. He yanks the sword from the computer and spins it to sheath
Out to the patio, ship docked. Up
the plank and through, he passes the 'autopilot', a self out-wired out
wired repair drone, become intelligent by it's own improvisations.
'Auto'.
He drags heavy cables from his arms and spine,
up to the heavies from the back of his head, framed in. It leads
through the deck as the monk walks to the command console, sits
and throws up his feet as the ship takes off.
Through
the flight-ways, impatient then twirling over, then to the long road
from the Nibiru Gate, seen in fallen to decay by the era of 'Ishi' and 'Gaslight'.
In the
wide expanse the ship jumps, curling a wisp of that world's pollution
behind with it's own violently, in the vacuum of departure.
________
In
silence the black ship ports in shaking it's ions briefly, darking out a
spot of stars over Gaea. Tiny lights spark in the atmosphere below, as
unknown objects enter in the hundreds, then nothing.
________________
________________________
~ the Decibel ~
________________________
________________