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First story is a walk away from the state capitol of Oregon as viewed in a rear view mirror, to hear her tell it
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Jun 16, 2020 04:42
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Pick posted:First story is a walk away from the state capitol of Oregon as viewed in a rear view mirror, to hear her tell it When I think paradise, I definitely think Salem, Oregon
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Jun 16, 2020 04:57
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Barudak posted:When I think paradise, I definitely think Salem, Oregon 
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Jun 16, 2020 04:58
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I still think it's funny we both independently argued with people about that story for exactly the same reason
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Jun 16, 2020 04:59
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I point blank assumed that the point was to get you to realize that our society is infinitely more messed up than the one in the book and to take action but apparently, thats not what people take away from it
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Jun 16, 2020 05:12
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their conversion ratio of suffering to wellbeing is incredible and would be an unimaginable boon to our much worse society
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Jun 16, 2020 05:22
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When i've finished at the breakfast buffet i'm the one who walks away from omelettes
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Jun 16, 2020 05:32
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Barudak posted:#2 the cold equations
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Jun 16, 2020 07:33
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Safety Biscuits posted:the cold equations Do we have prizes? This one is yours.
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Jun 16, 2020 07:50
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Two upperclass englishmen go for a walk, a real tonic for the constitution eh, wot wot? As they walk they discuss the various sundries of their upperclass lifestyle about how so and so used the oyster fork for scallops or whatever twits prattle on about. Eventually their evening walk finds them at the door of a doctors house and the two commiserate over the sad state of affairs. You see this rather reputable doctor has been seen less and less, after a ghastly fellow began to visit upon him. This beastly sod has done a series of nefarious acts, culminating recently when he trampled a maiden and proceeded to rough house her until someone intervened and made him pay a restitution. When time for the money came due he pulled it from the doctors house. Oh how far the doctor has fallen they mumble, not really bothering to inquire or ponder the fact that in their society because someone is rich they can easily buy their way out of criminal charges. Anyway, the two chaps go there separate ways. One of these fops checks in on the doctor who very eruditely tells him to kindly gently caress off with the inquiry regarding why he is housing a wanton woman trampler. Oh says our not at all intrepid hero, that seems fine. A letter arrives saying the whole doctors estate is to pass to his friend when he dies, and seems to be written in shaky unsure writing but the idea of actually investigating what appears to be blatant blackmail seems much harder than eating some more cucumber sandwiches old george. Sure enough, after no one does anything about a crime against a woman, the nefarious man visiting the doctor kills an man. There was no way to know this would happen, its not like he attacked a person before. No one even pays lip service to the fact that perhaps a person who has a history of broad daylight assaults against women and been shown there is no meaningful consequence to bis actions may be emboldened by this*. The police now sufficiently roused that a rich white man has been killed, decide perhaps they should investigate the doctor friend of our murderer. Ive not seen him says the doctor, and despite finding half of the cane that killed the man in his house, everyone seems very ok with this explanation. But something sits not right with our rich person, perhaps he will investigate more after his mid afternoon nap. Noone sees much of the doctor or anything of his awful friend for a while and our protagonist probably forgot all about it when having his 3rd glass of sherry at breakfast. Then a glimpse of the doctor is caught. He turns away all visitors except another doctor and nobody thinks, hey, this might be a bad idea or "maybe we should make aiding and abetting a crime". Well anyway, Dr. Gonnadie goes to the doctors house and well, bobs your uncle, he dies. Well now, with no doctor's awful friend (tm) around, people decide ok maybe we should actually investigate the doctors house, so I guess warrants are really really really hard to get. They break in to find it seemingly empty, but find downstairs a person who looks like half the doctor and half his awful friend. Youd think wed never find out what happened here since nobody involved can investiage well enough to find figure out who their reigning monarch is, but luckily they find a book which explains everything and that they never question at all. It turns out the doctor made an elixir which altered his appearance. Instead of using this for anything appreciable like even just publishing his findings, he used it to commit crimes and get away with them since hed eventually revert back to being the doctor. Sadly, he stopped reverting as fast and began to change without the elixir so he realized his cover would eventually not get blown so much as get stuck in his crime form. The lead, after learning this, instead of alerting anyone of this massive scientific and criminal discovery probably goes home rather put off his evening victuals but powers through half the gravy covered pigs tongue out of politeness to his wife's cook. Then generations of readers misunderstood the story and thought it was about a good person and a bad person in one body instead of a scathing rebuke of societies willingness to overlook crimes if their committed by the right sort and that good looking well connected people can be vile to their core. *Im noticing a trend in these books where a woman is the first victim so everyone ignores it and the fact that they are all several hundred years apart, and in some cases from female authors, is a troubling trend. Barudak fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 10:09
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Barudak posted:It turns out the doctor made an elixir which altered his appearance. Instead of using this for anything appreciable like even just publishing his findings, he used it to commit crimes and get away with them since hed eventually revert back to being the doctor. 
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Jun 16, 2020 12:43
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Chapter 12 We're with whatever police unit has been methodically searching the entire apartment complex in Las Vegas. Despite apparently being able to detect a male fitting Jason's profile, either this is another vague sensor or the boots on the ground never got that info. They've searched every apartment except two by now. One is owned by a Ruth Gomen, and the other by an Allen Mufi. Naturally they pick Mufi's. And ha, this group of police was ringing the bell to get people to let them in. If you were assuming they were once again, a bunch of combine soldiers doing breech-bang-clear thirty or so times, I don't blame you. This does explain how the police were so quiet as to not be heard by Jason, I suppose. This time, the police corporal in front tries Mufi's door before ringing, and finds it unlocked. The police sneak in with flashlights, and find everything dark and quiet, with the debris of a party lying around. quote:[The police corporal] trod across wall to wall carpet, which depicted in gold Richard M. Nixon's final ascent into heaven, amid joyous singing above and wails of misery below. At the far door he trod on God, who was smiling a lot as He received his second only begotten son back into his bosom, and pushed open the bedroom door. Mr. Mufi is asleep as a bunch of pols enter his bedroom. Mufi then wakes up, bolts to a drawer naked, and grabs some scissors, threatening to kill himself with them. To the pols this seems a bit of an overreaction, and they haul the blanket off of Mufi's bed, noticing someone else there. It is a naked thirteen year old boy. This is naturally horrifying to the pols, but it gets worse because the nameless pol we're with asked if the boy can prove he is thirteen, the age of consent. So funny thing: as long as the boy is thirteen and voluntarily there, this is no longer a crime. The other pols are disgusted by this, but the corporal informs them that "victimless crimes" are being removed from the books, and this is one of them. Mufi is a legal sex predator, colloquially known as a 'scan. Bear in mind, this is still abhorred, and the corporal threatens to reveal Mufi's secret at work (he's a used Quibble dealer.) This doesn't make much impact with Mufi, where he moves from terror to excuse making to smugness when he realizes the cops are just gonna leave, so the Corporal spits in his face and departs. The pols are completely disgusted, not to mention horrified that they had to see that and were unable to do anything. They take formation in front of Ruth's door, hoping this apartment is better. Chapter 13 Jason is still in the apartment, and is literally just theorizing on how he has 24 hour minimum, up to 48 before the cops come calling. He then notices that it is quiet, too quiet. Jason suddenly realizes he's about to get got. The doorbell rings. Jason opens the door. The cops place Taverner into protective custidy, along with Ruth. She asks if she can get a jacket, and one of the pols grabs her and hauls her out of the apartment. Ruth is sniveling that she's going to a gulag, and Jason says "nah, they'll probably just kill you", which gets a "well you're a nice guy" from one of the arresting pols. Jason and Ruth are taken to the police van/quibble and searched, then put aboard. Both are being taken back to LA, to the police HQ. Ruth is somewhat understandably freaking out, and the pols are actually trying to console her, saying she's just being taken back to Los Angeles, chill. Ruth says she hates LA. The pol riding in the back with them says "so do I - but we must learn to live with it; it's there." As Ruth continies to have a little breakdown, thinking of the pols ransacking her apartment (Jason responds to this with "Yup.") Jason asks the pol with them who they are being taken to, McNulty? The pol responds with Psalm 69 (lol) and says, no, it sounds like General Felix Buckman himself wants to talk to you. The pol then quotes another verse, Isaiah 65:13, 17. Then kinda on a roll: quote:"All flesh is like grass," the jesus freak Pol intoned. "Like low-grade roachweed, most likely. Onto us a child is born, onto us a hit is given. The crooked shall be made straight and the straight loaded."
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Jun 17, 2020 00:06
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An extremely mentally unwell packaged goods manufacturer lures the winner of the previous book's sadistic game into his personal, all glass spaceship. The two then leave the surly bonds of earth and reach a space hotel run by the US that the president is on board. The previous book, for the record, took place almost entirely in 1950s/early 1960s era industrial England with no hint of this. The unauthorized spacecraft approaching the hotel in space triggers its warning system and they declare the small craft with the UPGM and victim pirates who they will blow up. This is all supposed to be very wacky or something, but it just isn't. This meaningless subplot is cast aside and forgotten because space aliens attack. The space aliens in question have exterminated all other life in this solar system, and as far as the book seems concerned every other solar system. They are capable of traveling over a million miles in a day, shape change, impervious to weaponry, and enjoy playing with their victims. Our leads force their way onto the ship to help out, or something, and the aliens appear in front of everyone to scare them. Most people abandon the ship but not our leads. The president and some crew stay behind, to I guess fight it or because theyre really stupid, which honestly they are and are written as such. The aliens oblige by devouring dozens of people and gorging themselves on victims. UPGM kind of nonchalantly reveals that its totally hopeless, there was nothing he could ever do, the only defense is that the aliens explode on contact with earths atmosphere. He and his victim then flee back to the glass spaceship, which the aliens latch onto and explode when entering earths atmosphere. From here on this entire plot is abandoned. Returning home, UPGM decides its rude that victims elderly relatives are infirm and bed ridden and forces them to drink his magic potion to turn them young. This succeeds in reverting 2 of them to being babys and the third to disappear from existence. Oh no, says UPGM to victim, now we need to travel through dimensions. Again, as a reminder the previous book took place in a world where color TV was a cutting edge invention. They travel to the minusworld, where negatively aged people go. Here they give the last relative an aging potion and they end up becoming 358. How this does not kill them is unknown, but trust the book, its agony. The victims family then begins mixing the aging and youthing potions according to the UPGMs directions which results in everyone ending up exactly as infirm and bed ridden as before which is frankly disgustingly cruel. Haha laughs UPGM, Im a malevolent force of chaos who brings only misery with my gifts and curse your household. He doesnt actually say this, but he is. The book ends with him promising to force his victim into more horrible experiences beyond their control. Barudak fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 02:11
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Charlie and the great Glass Elevator
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Jun 17, 2020 02:18
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got it in one sentence 
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Jun 17, 2020 02:19
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I hate that book by the way.
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Jun 17, 2020 02:22
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Its the only book Ive ever read by the author and it turned me off all their other books and every film ever adapted from one of their books. Which it turns out maybe wasnt a bad thing because they were kind of an awful human being.
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Jun 17, 2020 02:24
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he's obviously a prick and all his books suck rear end and are weirdly mean-spirited
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Jun 17, 2020 02:25
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S C R A M
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Jun 17, 2020 02:30
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Pick posted:he's obviously a prick and all his books suck rear end and are weirdly mean-spirited If you read his autobiography you find out he turned into a prick courtesy of the ritualised abuse that is the English boarding school
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Jun 17, 2020 02:47
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I don't doubt it but I still don't want to read a book about how a fat kid is punished by being turned into a mouse so he'll die in two years. (Different from the main character who is also turned into a mouse so he will die in 2 years.)
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Jun 17, 2020 02:50
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I mean, he was still a prick
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Jun 17, 2020 02:59
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Barudak posted:An extremely mentally unwell packaged goods manufacturer lures the winner of the previous book's sadistic game into his personal, all glass spaceship. The two then leave the surly bonds of earth and reach a space hotel run by the US that the president is on board. The previous book, for the record, took place almost entirely in 1950s/early 1960s era industrial England with no hint of this. this got pasted out of context in the quotes thread and I spent most of it thinking it was about jeff bezos
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Jun 17, 2020 06:33
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A future British anthropologist comes to a planet inhabited by feline aliens whose favourite hobby is murdering the gently caress out of each other over petty insults. She learns their language and culture and basically goes completely native. We learn that Britain is now small and irrelevant and basically some kind of economic colony of the real important countries which are all Pacific (although corporates are more important still than any country) so top marks for prediction at least. While there she discovers that the inhabitants previously shared the planet with a cousin species who were colossal assholes and who enslaved all the ancestors of the current occupants using super advanced technology and genetic manipulation and so on. They may actually have uplifted them, I can’t remember. There was a rebellion and/or civil war and these guys all wiped themselves out with some kind of super weapon. So now all the current people hate and shun high tech stuff. She gets involved in various adventures and also has visions(?) of the last days of the ancient assholes, which involve a god king of some kind being really angry he couldn’t bone some family member (I think his sister) so he unleashed a mega weapon that was supposed to kill everyone because if he couldn’t be happy and bone his sister then neither should anyone else. She has some more adventures and goes home I guess. Some years later the anthropologist comes back on retainer from a big multinational corporation. Earth corporations have done a colonialism on the planet and messed everything up by introducing tons of functioning high tech stuff and playing divide and rule so they can salvage the ancient tech and now the whole place is a powder keg. Her boss is an Indian lady who knows a lot about corporate politics and how to do a colonialism profitably by playing divide and rule but gently caress all about ancient aliens. So her boss fails to spot that the friendly local powerbroker lady she’s backing is actually a total nut job who wants to fire the mega weapon and burn the atmosphere or turn everyone to glass or something because she’s decided she is descended from the ancient aliens. The powerbroker lady murders the boss and fires the super weapon and everyone on the planet dies horribly. The end. Beefeater1980 fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 11:19
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Short Story Fun Pack #1 Rich people, it is theorized, would also die in holodecks without any safety controls if their children want to murder them. #2 In this unbelievable story, automated, connected homes of the future don't cease to function when you stop paying your subscription fee due to being vaporized in atomic warfare. #3 On a faraway planet, humans are allowed to live after arriving there in exchange for allowing sentient centipedes to deposit their eggs in your body. As the story progresses and we learn more about the arrangement and how every aspect of it is designed to objectivify and reduce human males to host bodies, it becomes clear the author of this story probably watched the film Alien and thought H.R. Gieger was a coward who hid behind too much subtext. Barudak fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 14:05
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2 and 3 and there will come soft rains and bloodchild respectively.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:43
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1 is The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, I think e: Still not sure what your "war at the end of time" one was. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 16:19
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rear end in a top hat scientist creates a new protein in secret on company time, gets poo poo canned cos he’s an rear end in a top hat. Steals the protein in the dumbest way possible by jamming it in his body, this is bad. rear end in a top hat scientist goes on a pity hunt to his mum. rear end in a top hat scientist gets buff and fucks. Protein has got smart and decides pink is it’s colour, goes full grey goo melting scientist and girlfriend. Scientists only friend finds them all melty and zaps him with a lamp. Friend goes home and melts cos rear end in a top hat scientist is also a bit touchy and has infected pretty much everyone he knows. Friend melts in bed with wife. Pink goo goes ham on the USA. One random girl doesn’t melt but her family does and she is a little insane by this point. Another richer scientist gets goo infected but yolo’s out the country in his private jet straight to a quarantine lab in Germany. He melts slower and goes nuts. Starts talking to the goo. Goo informs him that rear end in a top hat scientist is their kinda god now and oh yeah there are 1000 million trillion of them. Random girl hits the city, city is covered in layers of flesh tarps. She freaks out a bit more. USSR fires every nuke they have at the USA but the goo thinks really hard about it and they don’t go off. Goo makes girls family come back then they gently caress off again. Time skip, girl is in London? A Goo copy of her says we’re off and taking everyone with us so get your poo poo together. Goo does some weird quantum stuff turns into a bird and fucks off. Sonderval fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 17:11
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Some technicians write a database query that is way too general as a joke, but when the little spinning rainbow equivalent pops up, they just alt+tab out of there and forget about it. Then, finally, after nobody trips over a power cord or decides to restart the computer for an inexplicable amount of time (not even after updates!), way after everyone is dead, the query finally resolves with what I presume is a chime so loud it would eventually be known as the big bong.
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Jun 18, 2020 06:23
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A science fiction author tries to make amends with a much less successful science fiction author that he has, if not abused, then at least put through hell. He is eventually successful, but spends a lot of time making uncharacteristically straightforward complaints about society that vary from prescient to very old_man_yells_at_clouds.txt. He also makes several characteristically not straightforward complaints about car alarms. 2020 democratic presidential primary candidate John Hickenlooper makes a brief guest appearance, although the author was graciously well past dead by then and could not be appalled by said candidate explicitly denouncing a bunch of what the author was saying. All the fretting and a lifetimes worth of anecdotes are good though, because the science fiction writer that's been through hell already ends up stuck reliving the previous ten years alongside everyone else on earth, and ten years of things you already know happened would probably get old quick. Once the interminable lurch towards the present is finally done, things fall to pieces in short order because everyone has forgotten how to not move on autopilot. Everyone except the abused SF author that is. After narrowly escaping death in a car accident that sets off several nearby car alarms, he manages to procure the only bazooka in Brooklyn and sets about reminding everyone that they have free will and also blowing up any car whose alarm is going off. Once the world is saved from forgetting how to do things intentionally, the abused SF writer writes a well received book and retires in a swanky clam bake attended by Nick Nolte.
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Jun 18, 2020 07:28
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kraken! posted:Some technicians write a database query that is way too general as a joke, but when the little spinning rainbow equivalent pops up, they just alt+tab out of there and forget about it. Then, finally, after nobody trips over a power cord or decides to restart the computer for an inexplicable amount of time (not even after updates!), way after everyone is dead, the query finally resolves with what I presume is a chime so loud it would eventually be known as the big bong. INSUFFICIENT DATA TO IDENTIFY STORY
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Jun 18, 2020 07:37
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The setting is the planet Earth 1 million years in the future. The protagonist is a torturer in-training. He falls in love with an imprisoned client. She kills herself. He is disgraced for helping her commit suicide. He is given a sword and told to go practice his trade as torturer and executioner for the mayor of a far away city in the mountains. He must travel by foot as travel by road has been forbidden. He sets off and falls in with a theatrical empresario and his assistant, and then parts ways with them. Shopping for new attire, he is tricked into thinking he's been challenged to a duel which is to be fought with poisonous sharp-petaled flowers; really it's a scheme to steal his sword which is an extremely rare and valuable piece. He sets off to retrieve the flower from a botanical garden, and is accompanied by the woman who wants to steal his sword. She goads a passing aristocratic into a coach-race which ends with him and her crashing into the circus-tent temple of a nomadic order of nuns. The woman steals the order's most precious relic and hides it in his pouch without him knowing. They arrive at the garden, which has multiple sections, is larger on the inside than on the outside, and is perhaps variously-moored in time. He slips and falls into a swamp in the garden which is used for interring the dead, and the relic on his person causes a swamp-buried woman to return to life and youth, but without her memories. The three of them secure the flower and proceeed to the dueling ground. His challenger is revealed to be the scheming woman's brother, and the challenge a trick to cause his death through his mishandling of the poisonous flower, so that the woman and her brother can steal his sword. The brother breaks from the duel, killing innocent bystanders with his flower, and is captured by guards and taken away. The woman vows revenge on the protagonist. He travels onward with the young revenant woman, and falls back in with the theatrical troupe, in time to help them stage their play in a field for an audience of visiting farmers and traders. The empresario's assistant is a hulking giant and ends the show by running amok and terrorizing the audience. In the morning the party sets off on foot for the city gate. An unclear bit of business occurs and the party is separated. End of book 1 of 4.
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Jun 18, 2020 08:19
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kraken! posted:Some technicians write a database query that is way too general as a joke, but when the little spinning rainbow equivalent pops up, they just alt+tab out of there and forget about it. Then, finally, after nobody trips over a power cord or decides to restart the computer for an inexplicable amount of time (not even after updates!), way after everyone is dead, the query finally resolves with what I presume is a chime so loud it would eventually be known as the big bong. I found this story perplexingly popular as a kid. The author has plenty of other stories but so many people were like, no, this one where it pads out its concept as long as it can and then gives me the ol deus est machina.
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Jun 18, 2020 08:52
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A man's house is destroyed and then his house's house is destroyed. He ends up on a road trip with his best friend, his ex, his ex's new boyfriend, and a dude who hangs out with them and just moans all the time. They end up taking a tour of a factory and meet some philosophers who are more upset about the man's house than he is. They eventually decide to grab a bite somewhere.
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Jun 18, 2020 13:58
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It's thousands of years in the future yet also very fin de siecle Europe, and spaceships work by solving maths problems, so all the pilots are mathematicians. The lord high pilot returns home from a long journey having discovered something crucial about the aliens who became God millions of years ago. A young pilot goes out with his friend, gets plastered, and swears he's going to fly his spaceship into a god. Not God, but a bunch of computer-sized moons floating in a part of space where all the stars are exploding into supernovas. He does this, meets a dead pilot who is still "alive" in the god's brains, and talks to the god herself, who's fond of quoting classic poetry. "The Tyger" is important. In the end the god lets our protagonist go, and answers three questions, which the pilot mostly wastes, but he finds out that the aliens' secret is in our oldest DNA. Pilot gets back home and is a hero. He celebrates by bonking his cousin, the lord high pilot's daughter. At some point we find out that our protagonist's mum stole the lord pilot's DNA to create him, so he's actually shagging his sort-of sister. Then he decides to go looking for the aliens' secret, which he concludes is in a bunch of people who began living like cavemen thousands of years ago; they changed their bodies to look like Neanderthals and hunt and gather, etc. The ruler of the city, who's also the ruler of the pilots' order, lets him go, and they all change their bodies into cavemen. It goes well until the cavemen discover that the hero's sister is stealing tissue samples from them, deduce that she's a witch, and vivisect her. She's pregnant. The other cavemen kill our hero and his best friend. Hero's mum sends him to another god to be resurrected. This one's a whole planet where everything's telepathic and all the dolphins make up the god. He gets better and goes home. A warrior-poet tries to kill his dad - these guys can slow down time and also quote Nietzsche - but the hero stops time and traps the poet. Eat poo poo, warrior-poet. They get arrested by robots and are imprisoned in a cell that's like Schroedinger's Cat - they're sealed up and at a random point they'll be poisoned, but if you don't look in they're not dead yet. The hero starts developing superpowers and gets broken out by his pilot friends who are rebelling against the ruler of the order and they fly away. Loyal pilots chase them and they fight a war by solving maths problems, until the hero solves a far future Hilbert Problem, travels to the god again, and discovers that people are blowing up the stars for energy. Then all the pilots realise that war is futile and go home. The lord of the order runs away into the ice, with a dog sled and all. The hero and his dad follow, fight, nearly kill each other, and make up. Turns out the lord of the order is about 50,000 years old and the god aliens put secret god info in his DNA when he was a caveman, and he's spent millennia screwing anyone he could find until the god info is in everyone's DNA. They catch him and dad kills the lord and goes back to be a caveman again. The hero goes home and becomes the new lord of the order.
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Jun 18, 2020 14:34
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That’s Neverness - David Zindell
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Jun 18, 2020 14:48
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Sonderval posted:That’s Neverness - David Zindell Right, and it was your username that gave me the idea. There's a dude named the Sonderval in it. One of my favourite sf books.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:01
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docbeard posted:A man's house is destroyed and then his house's house is destroyed. He ends up on a road trip with his best friend, his ex, his ex's new boyfriend, and a dude who hangs out with them and just moans all the time. They end up taking a tour of a factory and meet some philosophers who are more upset about the man's house than he is. They eventually decide to grab a bite somewhere. The highlight of the book series, for me, was visiting the mattress farm even if I couldn't tell you which of the increasingly less good books that was in.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:40
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Barudak posted:The highlight of the book series, for me, was visiting the mattress farm even if I couldn't tell you which of the increasingly less good books that was in. I want to say Life, The Universe, and Everything, but it's been so long since I've read it.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:42
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Earth's hosed, so they send out a bunch of sub-light colony ships as a last gasp before total civilization collapse. One of these ships seems to have gotten its destination scrambled, and instead of arriving at a sexy temperate paradise, it lands at a barely human-survivable iceball. The people on the ship know they're out of fuel, and they manage to create some hardscrabble settlements around thermal vents and a thin equatorial region that's at least mildly passable for low-intensity farming/hunting. Thousands of years pass on Earth, covering both the journey to Planet 2 and Planet 2's descent into neolithic. Earth gets back up to being an interstellar civilization, laser beams and AIs and all that. They've decided to try to figure out the fates of the colony ships that were sent way back when, so they send a scientific/anthropological/diplomatic mission to Planet 2. On the surface, the whole science team gets ambushed and killed, apparently with no team left in orbit. The AI they brought with them thinks fast and declares that she's actually a local goddess, and the crew she was travelling with were in fact her demonic captors and she's going to reward them her saviors by being their patron goddess. She doesn't provide that much help with raw technology but she does help build up a series of diplomatic norms that mostly ends the constant blood feuds going around, so it's basically a golden age. Earth, meanwhile, just knows that the team they sent just disappeared after saying 'we're here' and so they send another mission, this time with some real weapons. The time between the first and second missions landing is a couple centuries, so by the time the second group gets to Planet 2, the AI has completely bought its own bullshit and has become a less-depressing-but-immortal Kurtz. Unfortunately the Planet 2 colonists are basically armed with stone axes and spears, while the Earthlings are semi-fascists with artillery and lasers, so they kill the AI and are able to rapidly force a surrender, leading to some Colonialism. Of course interstellar politics is complicated and the fascists fall out of power and eventually the people of Planet 2 become well-known across the galaxy as particularly good interstellar lifestyle (probably because they don't get homesick for Planet 2 because it sucks) and have a large diaspora of pilots, merchants, and mercenaries.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:49
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